Steven Kurlander: In defense of Debbie Wasserman Schultz

With the Democratic coronation of Hillary (and Bill again, too) Clinton slated to begin Monday, it looks like Congresswoman and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz won’t be waiving her very curly hair, or the gavel as Chairwoman of the convention in Philadelphia.

In fact, she resigned her position as Chairwoman before the convention began.

David Axelrod, the former senior advisor to President Obama, stated Sunday “I would ask her to step aside. I would ask her to step aside because she’s a distraction in a week that is Hillary Clinton’s week.”

CNN indicated that over the weekend the DNC decided not to allow DWS to speak or preside over the convention (the term “quarantined” was used) while Politico reported that DWS herself pulled herself off the convention dais for fear of being booed by Bernie Sanders supporters.

The latest trouble for DWS as DNC Chairwoman began after the (obviously calculated) leak of over 20,000 email by WikiLeaks revealed that DWS and staffers at the DNC were working very hard against Bernie Sanders and his campaign.

There was one particular email that set off its own shitstorm where it appeared to indicate that the DNC was going to play Sanders as an atheist to weaken his appeal to southern voters.

Imagine that.  DWS and the DNC working hard to ensure that self-described socialist Bernie would not get the nomination?

Jeez, as  Gomer Pyle would opine, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

In reality, the American political system in terms of how we pick our leaders was always and continues to be just plain biased.  There’s no fairness about it.  Never was. Never will be.  The expectation that political operatives like DWS and parties are arbiters of fairness is just plain silly.

Her job, from the beginning of the campaign, was to ensure that Hillary (and Bill too) got nominated. Period.

Whether you like her or not, both in her role as DNC Chairwoman or as the chief Democratic antagonist in the House (particularly after Congressman Anthony Weiner took one too many selfies), DWS has been the ultimate loyal soldier to the “mainstream” Clinton-Pelosi wing of the Democratic Party-whether it meant getting into contentious fights with Axelrod and the Obama White House or doing everything she could to ensure that Hillary (and Bill again too) sailed through a nomination process that was rigged from the get go.

As chairwoman of a splintered and weak Democratic Party, DWS accomplished what Reince Priebus and mainstream Bushy Republicans couldn’t do – keep what would be in normal times a truly unqualified, populist candidate from obtaining the nomination for president.

So while DWS was forced to resign by her own benefactors, DWS got the job done for Hillary (and Bill too).

She may have in the long run also prevented the Democratic Party from becoming truly irrelevant to the majority of Americans too.

No matter what David Axelrod or any other Democrats say, DWS should hold her curls and head high for a job well do