Letters: Article belittled Sanders’ credentials

Since Sen. Bernie Sanders is the most authentic, competent, incorruptible and unpretentious presidential candidate in either party, I must take issue with your Aug. 21 report, “Bernie Sanders brings his upstart Democratic campaign to SC.” The use of the pejorative “upstart” is a sly attack on the legitimacy of Mr. Sanders’ candidacy. Really, is he a person “who has risen suddenly to wealth or high position”? Is he “one who behaves arrogantly”?

If your writers had done their homework, they would know that the senator served as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, several terms with distinction, being re-elected with increasingly higher percentages. They could further know that he served in the U.S. House before being elected and re-elected to the U.S. Senate. Bernie Sanders is hardly an “upstart.”

Almost immediately after being confronted with Black Lives Matter activists, Sen. Sanders met with them in dialogue, hired Symone Sanders, a talented young black activist, as his press secretary, and published a detailed listing of how he would address racial problems. The “expert” quoted in the article who asked if Sanders has a message that can reach black voters seems not to know this.

Perhaps if the writers had spoken to knowledgeable voters who are wildly enthusiastic about Bernie’s candidacy because of his stance on the most important policy issues of the times, and who don’t give a hoot about Sanders’ “rumpled clothes and unruly hair,” The State could have given its readers an unbiased, informative report of Mr. Sanders instead of the puerile hatchet job it presented as news.