At a Bernie Sanders rally on Saturday, actress Rosario Dawson made a controversial reference to Monica Lewinsky when introducing the presidential candidate. She mentioned how Lewinsky is now an anti-bullying advocate in order to criticize how the Hillary Clinton campaign is supposedly bullying Sanders. CNN has Dawson’s relevant quotes in question:
“We are literally under attack for not just supporting the other candidate. Now I’m with Monica Lewinsky with this: bullying is bad. She’s actually dedicated her life now to talking about that,” Dawson had said, before introducing the Vermont senator on-stage at a rally here.
She added: “And now as a campaign strategy, we are being bullied and somehow that is okay and not being talked about with the richness that it needs to (be).”
In specifically defining who has been bullying Sanders, Dawson spoke of a “media blackout” on his campaign, and a Clinton super PAC, Correcting The Record, which has launched campaigns to help Clinton supporters push back against online bullying.
On Jake Tapper’s CNN show on Sunday, Sanders praised all that Dawson was doing to campaign for him, but declined to make a judgment on her Lewinsky comments:
“I have no idea in what context Rosario was talking about her. But I would hope that all of our people would focus on the real issues facing working people and the massive level of wealth and income inequality.”
Excellent political maneuvering, Bern.
In the meantime, Lewinsky may have seen this and wonder why she’s being dragged into all of this again, especially when it comes to her anti-bullying work, discussed in this recent Guardian profile of her, being applied to campaign fighting between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
(via CNN)