It was faint and squishy sound made by Excitable Andy, agreeing with David Boaz and Timothy Sandefur that Ron Paul (TOMWCSA) is… well, not exactly a libertarian champion of gay rights. A two-sentence post, in fact, casually dropped without further comment in a flurry of morning blogging.
It seems like only four days earlier, Sullivan was thanking God for Ron Paul, and “understanding” his “negligence” in publishing newsletters with views that Sullivan might have been expected to denounce as unenlightened.
Will Sullivan — author of The Conservative Soul – now be worshipping full-time at the church of Obama Christ, Superstar (an entry published just two hours after criticizing Huckabee and Christianists)?ÂÂ
Not exactly. While proclaiming the coming of the Obamessiah, Sullivan had some kind words for Sen. John McCain — who lost Sullivan’s endorsement less than a month ago, when he picked Ron Paul.ÂÂ
Now Sullivan has dumped Paul, in two sentences, in the hopes his readers will not notice that he endorsed someone worse on Sullivan’s key issues than President Bush.
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” — George Orwell
That quote adorns Andrew Sullivan’s blog. Just don’t count on any help from Andrew Sullivan — particularly when the subject is Andrew Sullivan.
Update: Welcome, HotAirHeads! Feel free to kick your shoes off and check the place out.
To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle… oh wait. It’s a penis. Yay!
Thanks, hf. I needed a good belly laugh.
I don’t think those are his key issues. You think if he was the only one who would ever know about those newsletters he would break the story? I could be wrong, of course, but I doubt it.
– Penises in front of Andrews nose would aply describe the faux outrage now manifest with the Sullivan gaggle.
– Paul did the unforgivable, rejecting the support and wildly paranoid statements of the PaulBots at the Rep debates the other night. Said he:
– “Well they’re not doing me any good….[if] they care about me they would certainly not keep doing this….[I] do not believe any of these ideas personally, but I can’t tell then what to do…”, ect ect.
– While stopping short of a full out repudiation, he certainly made it clear they are a bunch of nutbags he wishes would shut the fuck up.
– And so we have the ever faithful protecting even the most mendacious of the group at the candidates expense.
– Bottom line. It always comes back to bite you on the ass when you depend on the support of extremists of any stripe. We will see more of this on the Democratic side as the elections near and the Dem candidates have to fight for a piece of the center. That will be the time that the Kos-nutters, and all the crazy aunts in the political attic, will once again be shown just how much out of the mainstream they really are. Embarrassing candidates into attending your yearly KosChaos is not the same thing as having any real political clout.
There is a reason RP stopped short of that full repudiation.
Also: hf remains on fi-yah, not just in this thread, but others today. His comment-fu is unstoppable.
Hayek said (Const. of Liberty) that he wasn’t – couldn’t be – a conservative. Neither is Paul.
No doubtful conservative could embrace the radicalism, for good or bad, of Paul.
Andy dated Dubya for years until George came out of the anti-closet. His Ron Paul affair was simply a matter of wanting to believe. Love is blind. And it stinks, according to the Mighty J Geils Band.
Yes, the Iraq War became a debacle right about the same time GWB was moving to protect marriage from the whips and chains set. For Andrew, I mean, of course.
ah geez… I’m getting tired of satyric Sully’s endorsement of whomever is his latest “tilts my kilt” epiphany.
[…] at Protein Wisdom thinks it may be is so. He also thinks, in the Sully Candidate Merry Go Round, the Magic Negro will next be St. […]
Pablo – Sully “Musta Got Lost” somewhere down the line.
Will excitable Andy become a warblogger again when he realizes that they throw stones instead of rice at Iran’s gay weddings?
Just in case anyone would like to read the original Reason article mentioned:
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124339.html
It is interesting to note that Reason, which is a Libertarian oriented magazine, has produced this article. That they let this through shows that they do not countenance censorship, even when and if that information may seem to besmirch an ostensible figurehead of their movement. That takes guts and commitment to principle.
However, more substantively, I think the article really stretches the concept of indicting Dr. Paul as being a racist. Granted, a politician must really give pause whenever he says anything about race, and realize that they will be parsed out of context by his/her enemies; I fail to find the smoking gun of sheer racism that is being imputed upon Dr. Paul.
Sure it is a bit reaching, from the public eye’s perspective, for someone to claim not to know what was going into a newsletter entitled with one’s own name, but on the hand it is entirely plausible given the hands off modus operandi that Dr. Paul permits others to independently support him – a libertarian method, power by consensus not by edict.
The supposedly “new” revelations of Matt Welch’s article are supposed accounts of Dr. Paul reaffirming some statements made in other articles written in support of him, that were ostensibly racist, as well as some statements put forth in his name via his campaign staff.
Trying hard to find a racist statement by Dr. Paul that stands on its own IN CONTEXT, is virtually impossible, unless the commentator/pundit artificially inject innuendo, conspiratorial conclusion, applying populist – but nonaccurate – verboten buzzwords, leading and reaching inference upon inference analysis.
– In some of these, Dr. Paul refers to reports issued by policy analysis institutions, and says flippantly [paraphrasing] “If these reports are accurate, then 95% of black males in DC are criminals”
– A reference is made to him saying that [paraphrasing] if a black man is running away from you, their swiftness is such that you cannot catch them. – Dr. Paul’s sin here is not balancing the statement out by observing that that is true of any raced male, or female, as well.
– Another reference is made to Dr. Paul stating that “While we are told fearing a black man is evil, it is hardly irrational”, upon which Dr. Paul refers to common criminal justice statistics (disproportionate # of crimes committed by minorities) in support of the observation.
– The article cites Dr. Paul as observing that black males who are 13 who commit violent crimes should be prosecuted as adults, as they can be just as culpable.
The list of slightly questionable statement in the article, dug up out 10’s of thousands Dr. Paul has made, seeks to establish Dr. Paul as a closet racist (at least 10 to 20 years ago), mostly because he had inartfully made race neutral observations about racial statistics in public policy, few and far in between, and in variegated contexts, speeches, interviews and appearances.
Although these statements were made inartfully, they are just the product of Dr. Paul’s plain way of speaking, just saying something like it is even if it did not come out politically correct, not the result of any occulted racism.
Dr. Paul is so pure, sincere and good, that even the rumour of a hint of a hint of an innuendo of racism makes big news. Irrespective of whether it is unfounded or mischaracterized.
…that he pisses rainbows and farts roses.
Jebus, give it a break. The Ronulans are as chock full of nuts as a trailer full of fruitcakes, and Ron himself certainly has no aversion to cozying up to some of the worst.
[…] Revelation of newsletters published under Ron Paul’s name containing racist comments and bizarre conspiracy theories and Paul’s own implausible responses that he couldn’t have possibly known what was for years being published under his name by people he approved have finally broken the back of the “movement” that trolled the blogosphere to hijack and spam every political thread in the name of Ron Paul. Contrary to what Captain Ed noted a few days ago, Paul supporters have not completely stopped their campaign, but their numbers are abruptly way down and now even Andrew Sullivan appears to be throwing Paul away. […]
[…] Just for the record, months ago, when he first announced, I wrote IowaHawk about doing Obama Superstar: Obama, Hey-Bama, Bama Bama, Obama, Hey-Bama, Obama! Barry, Barry, won’t you rescue me? Bama, Obama, Hey, Superstar! […]
Sullivan shifts position faster than a weathervane in a tornado. If you disagree with something he wrote just give him a minute, he’ll change.
Trying hard to find a racist statement by Dr. Paul that stands on its own IN CONTEXT, is virtually impossible, unless the commentator/pundit artificially inject innuendo, conspiratorial conclusion, applying populist – but nonaccurate – verboten buzzwords, leading and reaching inference upon inference analysis.
Gary – I disagree. It’s not hard at all if you take off your blinders and open your good eye.
Dr. Paul is so pure, sincere and good, that even the rumour of a hint of a hint of an innuendo of racism makes big news
I just puked a little in the back of my mouth.
Did he? Of course not. He slipped off the kerb.
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