This was an interesting, if surprising segment on Fox News.
Eric Bolling's mind is blown, ladies and gentlemen, that Hillary Clinton "is trying to tell Bernie Sanders and the American people that she can't stand Wall Street." He then went on to cite the publicly-disclosed donation numbers from employees of Wall Street firms as evidence that of course, she certainly is bought and paid for.
To which Geraldo Rivera replied, "This is the artful smear."
And it is. Because I guarantee you, Bernie Sanders will also have donations from Wall Street in his disclosures, because employees of those firms might be anyone from someone in the IT department to an executive with a socialist heart. There is no way he would be tainted in any way as a result of those donations.
For context, during the verbal boxing match at the beginning of Thursday night's Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton called Bernie Sanders' insinuation about a quid pro quo with Wall Street donors an "artful smear," because he couldn't actually link donors with any sort of payoff.
That didn't stop Bolling from going on and on about it, until Geraldo again felt the need to expand his original comment.
"I don't deny that this candidate has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in very lucrative speaking fees from the likes of Goldman Sachs, but people like you cannot point to one example of where she has rolled over for Wall Street. Give me one example. "
And Bolling couldn't.
When you're a New York Senator, New York businesses make political donations. It so happens that Wall Street is in New York. So yes, there are donations but no evidence that they gained preferences as a consequence. They did get a lecture for all their trouble, however, one that accurately predicted what would happen if they didn't rein themselves in and stop gambling with people's lives and mortgages. And while she was in the Senate, she introduced legislation a year before the economy crashed to try and prevent the nightmare that became the Great Recession.
Eric Bolling should actually try getting some facts before he spouts off. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but Geraldo Rivera actually made some good points there.
If they're going to claim someone is "bought and paid for," it's a good idea to actually have some evidence of that.
