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Showing Original Post only (View all)Matt Taibbi: Give 'Em Hell, Bernie: Bernie Sanders is more serious than you think [View all]
Many years ago I pitched a magazine editor on a story about Bernie Sanders, then a congressman from Vermont, who'd agreed to something extraordinary he agreed to let me, a reporter, stick next to him without restrictions over the course of a month in congress.
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I got the go-ahead and the resulting story was a wild journey through the tortuous bureaucratic maze of our national legislature. I didn't write this at the time, but I was struck every day by what a strange and interesting figure Sanders was.
Many of the battles he brought me along to witness, he lost. And no normal politician would be comfortable with the optics of bringing a Rolling Stone reporter to a Rules Committee hearing.
But Sanders genuinely, sincerely, does not care about optics. He is the rarest of Washington animals, a completely honest person. If he's motivated by anything other than a desire to use his influence to protect people who can't protect themselves, I've never seen it. Bernie Sanders is the kind of person who goes to bed at night thinking about how to increase the heating-oil aid program for the poor.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/give-em-hell-bernie-20150429#ixzz3Yiujk2wG
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