Sanders might not be the guy, but he's definitely part of the right party

“You know, I, for the love of me, I cannot understand why people who have billions of dollars are compulsively driven for more and how many people have got to die because they don’t go to a doctor, because you want to avoid paying your taxes?”
-- BERNIE SANDERS

I don't think Bernie Sanders is going to be elected president. In fact, I don't even think he'll be the Democratic nominee.

I would be willing to bet he isn't even that serious about being elected. Sanders will celebrate his 75th birthday two months before the election, which would make him five years older than anyone else ever elected before.

The only previous president who was even 70 on Inauguration Day -- William Henry Harrison -- got sick while making his inaugural address and died a month later. Ronald Reagan celebrated his 70th birth two weeks after taking office, but he was showing clear signs of a mental decline by early in his second term.


I know some will react by accusing me of being ageist and saying age should have nothing to do with who we elect, but anyone who says that wasn't paying attention during Reagan's second term. There was the classic moment when someone at a public appearance asked a question and the president just stood there completely baffled until Nancy stage-whispered to him.

"Just say we're doing all we can."

And if there was anything more painful to watch than Reagan's testimony in the Iran-Contra hearings, when he said over and over that he didn't remember, it probably involved Richard Nixon saying he wasn't a crook.

Don't get me wrong.

I like Bernie Sanders.

A lot. I think he's basically where the Democratic Party ought to be politically. And the more success he has in the primaries, maybe he can remind Democrats of what things used to be like when they were really Democrats.

If you understand history, one thing that is nearly always true with presidential elections is that whichever candidate comes across as being closest to the middle of the road usually wins.

That and the most likeable.

Sanders can't get to the middle, at least where the middle seems to be these days. But one thing he can do -- and appears already to be doing -- is to force probably nominee Hillary Clinton to move a little to the left of where she is now. If he can pull Clinton a little farther from Wall Street and a little closer to Main Street, he will have performed a great service.

No matter what your political philosophy, what has happened in the last 35 years isn't good. Income equality has increased to the point where the gap between the rich and the working class is growing as wide as the Grand Canyon. we have been at war in Afghanistan for more than 14 years. That's longer than the Civil War, both world wars and the Korean War combined.

There's an amazing irony in that. The same people who are convinced Ronald Reagan won the Cold War with his defense buildup and his aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan, the same ones who laughed at the Soviets for failing to remember no one had conquered Afghanistan in 2000 years, are the same ones who wanted us to stay there.

Sorry, but they don't call it the "Graveyard of Empires" for nothing. Whether we are in Afghanistan for six more days or 60 more years, six months after we leave it will be as if we were never there.

Whether it's Sanders or Clinton, the chance of ending the war are better with either of them than with any of the Republicans. And it isn't as if we're preventing bad people from killing good people. Wars between Shiites and Sunnis remind me of Harry Truman's response when Adolf Hitler broke his treaty and attacked the Soviet Union.

Truman said he hoped the Russians would kill lots of Germans ... and vice versa.

This is going to be one of those wars where a generation from now, American families who lost sons or daughters in Afghanistan will realize that except for catching and killing Osama bin Laden, it was pretty much all in vain.

So, Bernie, Hillary, you can have my vote as long as you end the goddamn war right away.

Otherwise, you're just another couple of politicians.