The Sanders campaign gets in on the bashing.

[DanTex]

One of the many paradoxes of the Bernie movement is the insistence that it's about "policy", but whenever anyone disagrees with Bernie about policy they get bashed mercilessly, called shills, facebook pages and inboxes flooded with personal attacks, etc. Of course, usually it's not the Bernie campaign, but his fans who do this. Then again, Bernie says it's not about him, it's about "we", so in that sense the behavior of his followers is germane to the whole "revolution" that he is trying to start.

But now, facing criticism from many liberal policy experts for his rosy healthcare assumptions, the campaign itself has gotten in on the action. From Krugman:

Now Kenneth Thorpe, a health policy expert (and a long-term supporter of health reform who believes that single payer would be a good thing if politically feasible) has tried to crunch the numbers, and it really doesn’t look good. Thorpe estimates that the plan would actually require about twice as much new revenue as Sanders claims.

The Sanders campaign is calling this a “hatchet job”; but as Jonathan Cohn says, Thorpe’s assumptions

are broadly consistent with what most health policy experts believe.

Or as Ezra Klein puts it,

the gap between Thorpe and Sanders is the gap between an economist who is optimistic that single-payer can save some money and a campaign optimistic that it can save a huge amount of money.

And it’s not good to see the campaign basically responding to questions about its numbers by attacking the motives of someone who should be on their side.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/single-payer-trouble/

No, it's not good for the campaign to be doing that. They should follow the example of George Friedman, the economist upon who's research the Bernie plan is closely modeled. He disagrees with Thorpe's assessment, but manages to do it without smearing:

Still, Friedman noted, “Kenneth Thorpe is a serious scholar and his contribution to this dialogue is most welcome.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sanders-health-plan-cost_us_56a8ff99e4b0f6b7d5447ee8

Why can't the Bernie campaign accept that there are intelligent, progressive people who actually disagree with their policy assessments?

[NurseJackie]

1. Well ...

Why can't the Bernie campaign accept that there are intelligent, progressive people who actually disagree with their policy assessments?

I think it's because many people take things too personally. It's an instinctive and emotional response, or a reaction that I'd expect to see among smack-talking bickering fans of sports teams.