The skeleton in Bernie's closet

Finally, we get a glimpse into the Sanders family closet. Guess who's in there? Mr. Bones!

Here's the gist: Some years ago, a Catholic diocese in Vermont sold some land to pay off a sexual abuse settlement. The purchaser was Burlington College, whose president was -- until recently -- Jane O'Meara Sanders.

She took out a loan for $10 million dollars. She said she had $2 million in fundraising pledges all lined up to start paying off the debt. I have no doubt, personally, that she sincerely thought she had the money all lined up.

As Ms. Sanders pursued financing for the land acquisition, she repeatedly said that Burlington College had received more than $2 million in fundraising commitments and pledges, according to numerous records.

But in fiscal year 2011, Burlington College raised only $279,000—though the college had earlier claimed to have secured $1.2 million in confirmed pledges.

Very strange. You see, most of the time the vast majority of fundraising pledges (as in more than 90 percent) sail through. But not in this case.

So what happened?

I'm not sure, exactly. I don't know who pledged the money and later backed down.

The upshot is clear: Jane was forced to leave the college, receiving a rather hefty $200,000 severance package. And now, Burlington College is no longer going to be an accredited institution of higher learning, because "insurmountable" financial problems have left the college on very shaky economic grounds.

Now, there is plenty of ammo here for oppo research -- as in: "How can Sanders claim that he has the ability to run the American economy?" The right-wing blogs will surely make that argument.

That line of attack is, in my view, a cheap shot.

A more interesting line of inquiry: Who reneged on those pledges?

Was his name Donald? Was it someone acting as a cut-out for Donald?

Did someone offer to pay off the debt? Was his name Donald?

Did Jane Sanders do anything -- accidentally or wittingly -- that would render her susceptible to prosecution?

I think we are beginning to get a clearer picture as to how Bernie Sanders was manipulated. The Bernie we are seeing now is not the Bernie was saw a year ago. Someone has been pulling his strings.

Did you know that Roger Stone has been praising Bernie to the skies lately? And yet, as recently as 2014, Stone had tweeted that Bernie Sanders deserves to be shot.

I find it interesting that Bernie was on Roger's mind at that time.

Stone constantly studies the Democratic party, looking for cracks and fissures. He doesn't like Democrats, but he sure knows how to manipulate them.

Incidentally, here are Roger Stone's recent thoughts as given to Breitbart:

“I think that gives Trump a real entrée to almost a third of Bernie’s supporters in a general election,” he then added. “I don’t mean his hard-left, ultra-liberal supporters, but I mean the blue-collar Democrats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York who feel left behind by the new world order economy..."

The use of right-wing conspira-speak is interesting. I wonder how if Stone really believes that "new world order" crap, or is he simply flattering the Alex Jones crowd?

More importantly: This is how Roger Stone always operates. He fractures the Dems, and then scoops up bits and pieces -- whatever he can get -- for his client.

The genius of the 2008 strategy now -- finally -- becomes clear to me: The manipulators set a black man against a woman in the Democratic primary. If the woman had won, McCain would have picked a black veep. But the black man won, so McCain picked a woman veep.

From the GOP point of view, the task in 2008 was not to choose a side in the Hillary/Obama contretemps, but to insure that the fight was much more vicious than it should have been -- and to keep everything on the level of identity politics.