Bernie Sanders, athlete

I was wrong--Bernie's not out of it.

Bernie's an athlete, he got his second wind, a beautiful thing, like watching Michael Jordan take over a game with 2 minutes to go in the 4th quarter and Jordan getting that 'we're not going to lose' look.

I was mistaken too in insisting he be called 'Bernard.' 

Perhaps the obit in The New York Times Magazine over the weekend with the cover headline "Bernie Sanders believes America misjudged him--Did he misjudge America', by Robert Draper, a classic soft hatchet-job of political reporting, that the Times photo editor paired with a cover portrait of the presidential candidate looking all but dead, roused the athlete in Bernie.

The NYT piece, I'm guessing it to be between 10 to 15,000 words, might have been condensed, had I written it, to the following:

Bernie Sanders is a stud, a serious man who thinks about serious things and has done so most of his life. He's an athlete, he ran track and long-distance competitively in high school. He's devoted his adult life to public service, He knows how to 'do' politics in a moral way on behalf of the people he serves. He's independent of both the big-money bloodsuckers AND the 'small government is the best government'  movement that has plagued American civic life for the past 40 years. Bernie Sanders is too good for us, I'm afraid he's passing us by.

PS: The connection between the athlete, the nature of competition, and the presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders is worth thinking about, as is the current nature of political reporting in this country and certain journalistic 'practices' that have creeped into that reporting.