Monday, September 07, 2015

OPINION - Shields and Gerson 9/4/2015

"Shields and Gerson on refugee crisis responsibility, Trump’s GOP pledge" PBS NewsHour 9/4/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including Hillary Clinton’s latest interview on her use of a private email server, Donald Trump’s pledge not to run as a third-party candidate, plus who should be stepping up to address the refugee crisis in Europe.

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist:  I will say this about Secretary Clinton today.  Her answer to Andrea on Joe Biden was pitch-perfect.  I mean, it was human, it was natural, it was very personal in the best sense.  And it didn’t have any political angle to it that I could detect.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Well, she asked her, do you have a comment about the fact that he’s considering running?

MARK SHIELDS:  Right.  Oh, I’m sorry.  Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  And she said, it’s not for me to say.  And then she went on to say, he needs the space to think about it, right?

MARK SHIELDS:  Right.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Michael, we ran a clip of what the Vice President said last night at that speech at the synagogue in Atlanta.

Do you think get the sense that he’s leaning away?  He clearly didn’t sound like he is there yet.

MICHAEL GERSON, Washington Post:  I get the sense that you’re seeing that process in public, exactly what he’s thinking about this.  It’s one of his appeals, is this transparency.

And this is a family that underwent a terrible trauma three months ago, that, you know, a trauma like that can strengthen a family, but it also can be a difficult time.  And a presidential campaign brings minute and massive scrutiny.

And so I think that is a real issue.  But he could come in here.  He doesn’t fit an ideological gap.  He’s very much like Clinton in a lot of his views.  There is no ideological gap he would fill.  But there is a kind of ethical gap that he might fill.

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