David Sirota: From a Bogus Website to Bernie Sanders's Inner Circle

[RandySF]

Bernie Sanders first hired his new speechwriter, David Sirota, 20 years ago, shortly after Sirota was fired from a mayoral campaign for his connection to a bogus website that promoted a racially charged quotation, taken out of context, of a black opponent.

In 1999, in Philadelphia, there was a crowded Democratic primary for mayor. Three of the candidates were African American: John White, Dwight Evans, and John Street, all of them friends going back years. But the race got intense early, and David Sirota, then working as the deputy campaign manager for Evans, was part of an effort to cut down White’s support: creating a bogus website, purporting to be the official home page of the White campaign, and using it to promote a racially charged quotation, deliberately taken out of context.

The ruse was soon discovered. Evans, who is now a Democratic member of Congress, fired Sirota. He called Sirota “overzealous” at the time. “I do not want this race to be about race,” Evans said in 1999, calling the site in question an example of “dirty tricks.” The website took a comment that White had made in a broader interview with a Spanish-language weekly, Al Día, and presented the line as if it were an anti-white slogan: “The black and the brown, if we unite, we’re going to control this city.” Local reporters in Philadelphia received emails directing them to the site as though it were part of John White’s campaign.

White, according to news reports at the time, was speaking about the increased political clout African Americans and Latinos could have if they worked together as a coalition. That was February. By the fall, Sirota was hired as the press secretary for Bernie Sanders, then in the House. He was hired by Sanders’s then–chief of staff, Jeff Weaver, who went on to manage Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign and remains a senior adviser to the 2020 campaign.



https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/bernie-sanderss-new-speechwriter-has-controversial-past/585547/

[Me.]

1. Wait...What?

"first hired his new speechwriter, David Sirota, 20 years ago, shortly after Sirota was fired from a mayoral campaign for his connection to a bogus website that promoted a racially charged quotation, taken out of context, of a black opponent"

[RandySF]

2. Fact

[Me.]

3. The Amazing Thing Is

Over the course of 20 years he hasn't changed so obviously he has no regrets for the ugliness he spread and if past is prologue he will continue to do so.

[Cha]

4. BS: "I like this guy.. give him a job!"

Good Grief.. and here we are.

Link to tweet

[Me.]

5. This Is Such A Tell From BS

But this time around too many people are watching and he and Nina and David, Bree, Jane and the comic book guy are not going to get away with anything anymore.

[Cha]

6. Too many tells from BS..

Link to tweet

[Me.]

7. Totes

[Thekaspervote]

8. Pretty much what any good democrat needs to know

[comradebillyboy]

9. Sirota, neither friend nor ally. I don't trust him, I don't like him...

[Cha]

10. Enemy.

Link to tweet

[SidDithers]

11. Only the best people...nt

Sid

[betsuni]

12. What would FDR do?

[NurseJackie]

16. He'd release ten years of full tax returns...

... if he were running today. Eleanor wouldn't be making excuses for him either.

[R B Garr]

13. What a shady person. The fact he went out of his way

to set up a phony website to further his lies is more than enough proof that he says nothing that can be believed. So what does Bernie want him for...hmmm.

[NurseJackie]

14. Sirota has no ethics. Makes me question the judgement or ethics of anyone who'd hire him.

I have the feeling, however, that Sirota will feel right at home with the BS organization and campaign.

[R B Garr]

15. Yes, it does make you question the judgment and ethics of someone

who would hire him. Look at what happened when Sirota got caught working for Sanders— he deleted 20,000 tweets and then denied what a Sander’s staffer had already admitted: Sirota had been working for Sanders for months. Looks like intentional obfuscation and disinformation. Hmmmm

Faiz Shakir: “He was advising beforehand. Sirota’s work for Sanders goes back months.”

[NastyRiffraff]

17. Sirota is worse than I thought

And I thought he was a slimy liar who made it his mission to take down Hillary Clinton.

Wait. I didn't think that. It was a fact.