by Josh Feldman | 9:44 pm, March 7th, 2017
Senator Bernie Sanders responded earlier today to the criticism inThe Washington Post he got for calling President Trump a liar.
The piece yesterday was headlined “The sorry state of political discourse right now, in five Bernie Sanders tweets.” It featured this tweet, followed by others in a thread:
President Trump cannot continue to lie, lie, lie. It diminishes the office of the president and our standing in the world.https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/837996746236182529 …
The piece reaches this conclusion:
This is the state of our political discourse right now. Political norms — like, don’t accuse the president of the United States of lying without evidence, or don’t accuse the former president of the United States of wiretapping your phones without evidence — have been eviscerated. There are no rules right now in politics about what you can/can’t or should/shouldn’t say.
Amber Phillips lists the reasons why the media is being careful not to call Trump a liar, adding, “Top Democrats like Sanders feel no such hesitation. In their mind, the president has become so unhinged that they have no choice but to accuse him of lying ‘shamelessly,’ corrosive effects on political discourse be damned. If you’re a Democrat, they were already up in smoke anyway.”
Sanders responded tonight with a series of questions: