second chances missed, second choices considered

Still not good enough.

Once again, Balko nails it:

I have no idea if Paul is a racist. I suspect that he isn’t, at least today. But he’s certainly had no problem benefiting from the support of people who are. It’s more than a little disingenuous for him to now defend himself by invoking what the criminal justice system has done to the black community when for fifteen years a newsletter bearing his name, and the profits from which went into his bank account, celebrated and encouraged the black-people-are-savage-criminals lie in particularly vile and perverse ways.

The newsletter defended the Rodney King beating, for God’s sake, on the bullshit argument that King was part of a criminal class of people. The implication is that some people deserve substandard treatment under the rule of law because of the color of their skin. There’s nothing remotely libertarian about that.

Libertarians are nothing if not capable of devouring our own. I'm OK with that. Right or wrong, Paul is currently an embarrassment to the causes that he champions. I think he is intelligent enough to realize this, eventually. But he is also stubborn enough to not realize it immediately. His nonchalance in the Blitzer interview shows it.

There is also the small matter that I frankly no longer believe his pleas of ignorance about the content of the newsletters.

Which truly sucks, because Paul has gotten more people talking about liberty, the Constitution, and a fundamental reassessment of our foreign policy this past year than anyone ever expected him to. And if there is a silver lining in any of this, it's that the "Ron Paul Phenomenon" really has been about the ideas, not the man--after all, it certainly hasn't been because he is a particularly adroit or engaging speaker.

My hope is that the movement will outlive its namesake. I also know better than to count on this.

Looking ahead, this makes Barack Obama much, much more appealing to my mind. Some excerpts:

Obama's preference for reducing healthcare costs while preserving the freedom to choose whether or not to participate in the healthcare system, as against Clinton's (and Edwards's) insistence on mandating participation, is not a one-off discrepancy without broader implications. Rather, Obama's language of personal choice and incentive is a reflection of the ideas of his lead economic advisor, Austin Goolsbee, a behavioural economist at the University of Chicago...

Instead of recommending traditional welfare-state liberalism as a solvent for socioeconomic inequalities and dislocations, Goolsbee promotes programmes to essentially democratise the market, protecting and where possible expanding freedom of choice, while simultaneously creating rational, self-interested incentives for individuals to participate in solving collective problems...

Goolsbee and Obama's understanding of the free market as a useful means of promoting social justice, rather than an obstacle to it, contrasts most starkly with the rest of the Democratic field on issues of competition, free trade and financial liberalism...The evidence that Obama heeds Goolsbee's lessons is ample, his healthcare plan being but one of many prominent examples. Whereas Clinton has recently taken to pulling protectionist stunts and rethinking the fundamental theoretical soundness of free trade, and Edwards is behaving like the love child of Huey Long and Pat Buchanan, Obama instinctively supports free trade and grasps the universe of possibilities that globalisation opens up...

We could do worse.

tnr, ron paul, etc...

I've taken the Ron Paul banner down, for now. Here's why, succinctly:

This is not an adequate response to this.

Now, for what it's worth, I'm inclined to take Eric Dondero at his word when he claims that the ghost writer was "80% Lew Rockwell". First, because Dondero worked for Paul at the time, and second, because Dondero has bashed Paul every chance he has gotten during this campaign. So he really has no reason to out Rockwell, and thus support the campaign's position that all of this was the work of (poorly supervised) ghost writers (unless he has a beef with Rockwell even bigger than the one he has with Paul.)

Also, because frankly this sounds like the sort of shit a confederate apologist like Rockwell would write if he didn't have to sign his name to it.

Radley Balko's take on this pretty much reflects my own. To which I will only add that I stand by my support of Paul for the reasons I have supported him--to wit, that he is the only candidate in the race (either major party) who has clearly articulated 1) a position on the constitutional limitations of the executive that I can stomach, and 2) a comprehensive foreign policy of non-intervention. With regard to the presidency, everything else is small potatoes as far as I'm concerned.

That said, I'm pissed off at Paul and his campaign for not handling this better.

Addendum--The fact that Paul was not contacted by Kirchick or The New Republic for the piece is just plain shitty. This doesn't mean that the newsletter issue doesn't need to be addressed, but let's not pretend that this is objective journalism, here.

swf, 23, seeking democrats for nsa fun in iowa after the cacuses

OK, now that I have your attention, Iowa Democrats:

If you really feel like you have a dog in the fight among Clinton, Obama, and Edwards (or if you feel you need to make a principled stand for Kucinich or Dodd--believe me, I empathize) then by all means, do so tonight.

But if not, then please consider that you have the opportunity to do something really special this evening. You can, by virtue of your residency, take a giant metaphorical dump in the oatmeal of Republicans everywhere, and especially the Fox News/GWB/26% crowd.

You can cross over and vote for Ron Paul.

Seriously--if you want to register a rebuke to the policies of the last 7 years, vote for Ron Paul. I know he's not perfect, I know he's been pandering to the xenophobes, that he isn't terribly sanguine about Roe v. Wade, and that he doesn't seem to buy into the whole evolution thing. Give the man a break--he is from Texas, after all.

Look inside your heart. You know that deep down, you want nothing more than to see GOP suck it, big time. Make your vote really count.

Thank you for your attention. Drive safe tonight, and stay warm.

And don't worry, I won't tell your wife you came looking here.

brevity

It's something I value and strive for. So rather than recapitulate recent events in the horse race, I'll simply quote this guy.

So Paul has to rake in a cool $5 million in one day to be mentioned in the MSM, and Obama just has to walk into a church. And Huckabee just has to smile. Well fuck.

Indeed.

I'm pretty sure the Huckabubble© will burst, and as much as I'd like to see Obama take Clinton out, Democrat primary voters have a nasty habit of nominating the candidate most likely to have been a hall monitor. (The previous Clinton being the obvious--and most successful--exception.)

You know...even if you aren't inclined to support Ron Paul, you have to admit that it'd be fun to watch all the heads exploding if he actually won.

ghandi on ron paul

"First they ignore you..."
Check.

"...then they ridicule you..."
Check.

"...then they fight you..."
Check*.

"...then you win."


All I'm saying is that for an "unserious", "kooky" candidate of the lunatic fringe (who remember: has absolutely no chance in hell of winning the Republican nomination!), Ron Paul is attracting an awful lot of invective from the GOP establishment.

But don't take my word for it. Consult the almighty Google:

"Mike Huckabee is crazy": 1 hit

"Tom Tancredo is crazy": 7 hits

"Duncan Hunter is crazy": 0 hits

"Ron Paul is crazy": 740 hits

Naturally, another explanation of these data is that Ron Paul really is crazy. And that's fine, but do keep in mind that Huckabee (probably) thinks the world is 6000 years old** and Tancredo thinks that Mexicans want to bomb our shopping malls. Google stats don't track reality--they track what people are saying. (To be fair, "John McCain is crazy" turns up a staggering 4190 hits...but he is a much higher-profile candidate. Who might, in fact, be crazy.)


*Radley Balko gives Mona Charon's insipid column a much more thorough refutation than it really deserves.

**To be fair, when asked directly Huckabee has stated that he "doesn't know" whether the Biblical account is literally true or not. Maybe it's just my own brand of fundamentalism talking, but saying that the Bible might be literally true is only a scant hair away from saying that it is, in terms of absurdity. Try substituting "Alice in Wonderland" or "Beowulf" for "the Bible" in that train of thought.

remember, remember the fifth of november...

I've been really busy today...have any of the major news outlets bothered to report that Ron Paul has raised approximately $4.8 million in the last 24 hours?

All those bots that keep jamming discussion boards and post-debate polls must be loaded...

foresight

On a day when an American politician is being lauded the world over for his foresight, I think it is only appropriate to point out this quote by another American politician--one who is actually running for president this year--that I found in an article on the same:

"Our current foreign policy does nothing more than stir the flames of hatred on both sides... Hatred towards America will continue to escalate, and the United States security will continue to diminish due to the threat of terrorist attacks... The greatest threat to our national security is our own bad policy. [emphasis added]"

That was Ron Paul, speaking on the floor of Congress.

In 2000.

(Dr. Paul's statement in full an be found in the Congressional Record here.)

blogorrhea

--I have a feeling that food and drug products from China just got a hell of a lot safer. (Yikes!)

--Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona says that "...anything that doesn't fit into the [Bush administration's] political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried" and that he was routinely censored and/or explicitly told what to say while in office. Clearly, Richard Carmona hates America.

--Ron Paul. That is all.

--I sincerely think (and hope) that there is no truth to this, because it strikes me as a supremely uptight move for a pizza chain that is essentially one big drug joke. That said, I do find the Indy cover in question personally offensive. (Not because of the guy in a bra, but because of the condescending subtitle.)

even though i am against texan presidents in principle

I was pretty tough on Ron Paul a few weeks back. I remain concerned about a number of his positions, specifically: his relatively hard line on immigration and his bizarre fixation on the federal reserve and the gold standard (I know, I know, but there is much more low-hanging fruit for libertarian reform in this country before we go mucking about with our monetary system, doncha think?)

However...

The fact of the matter is that Dr. Paul is doing remarkably well on the publicity front, far exceeding the expectations that any sane person would have placed on him a few months back. (I know he is still polling near the bottom, but remember it is June of 2007, and support for the alleged GOP front-runners is so fickle that grown men are responding to Fred Thompson as if they were 14-year-old girls and Thompson was Justin Timberlake. Or whoever 14-year-old girls are stupid over these days.)

Word is that Paul's donations are up. Way up. As in possibly on par with McCain's

And it may have something to do with the fact that he is the only person in the GOP race who is articulating a solid opposition to the Iraq war (and arguably, the most consistently anti-war in either party's slate of candidates). When (not if) the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, an anti-war GOP candidate is probably the best bet to beat her (not to mention the best bet for bringing our entanglement in the Middle East to a reasonably quick conclusion.)

Given my recent ambivalence towards voting (and the fact the 2008 NC primary might as well be held in 2010) I've decided that even a nominal monetary contribution would have 1000 times the effect the empty gesture of actually punching a ballot (particularly in my district).

So I gave Dr. Paul some cash today, my first contribution to any candidate for anything, ever.

does ron paul favor torture (or is he just really bad at debating?)

I'm home sick today, alternating between feverish napping and that weird head separated from the rest of the body feeling that Theraflu (the good stuff, with pseudephidrine in it) brings about.

Last night I came home late-ish and got sucked into the Republican debate just as Brit Hume essentially asked the candidates "what would you do as President on an episode of 24?" From the transcript:

"The questions in this round will be premised on a fictional, but we think plausible scenario involving terrorism and the response to it. Here is the premise: Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned. U.S. intelligence believes that another larger attack is planned and could come at any time."

I have to admit I was genuinely frightened by the responses.

Hume--"First question to you, Senator McCain. How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?"

McCain--"If I knew for sure that they had that kind of information, I, as the president of the United States, would take that responsibility. That is a million-to-one scenario. But only I would take that responsibility.

The use of torture -- we could never gain as much we would gain from that torture as we lose in world opinion. We do not torture people..."

Later, after follow-up question, McCain called bullshit on the parsing of "enhanced interrogation techniques", (see below) and pointed out that there was a "sharp division" during the debate over the detainee treatment act between those that had served in the military and those that had not, with those having served being essentially unanimously opposed to torture.

McCain is wrong about a lot of things, but he is on the side of the angels on this one. What was truly disturbing was the chorus of answers from basically everybody else:

Giuliani--"I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. It shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of (Hume interupts: "Water-boarding?") and I would -- and I would -- well, I'd say every method they could think of, and I would support them in doing that..."

Romney--"...you said the person's going to be in Guantanamo. I'm glad they're at Guantanamo. I don't want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil...Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo." (He later said he supported "enhanced interrogation techniques".)

Hunter--"Yeah, let me just say this would take a one-minute conversation with the secretary of Defense. (Laughter.) I would call him up or call him in. I would say to SECDEF, in terms of getting information that would save American lives, even if it involves very high-pressure techniques, one sentence: Get the information. Have it back within an hour, and let's act on it."

Paul--"I think it's interesting talking about torture here in that it's become enhanced interrogation technique. It sounds like Newspeak. Nobody's for the torture, and I think that's important. But as far as taking care of a problem like this, the president has the authority to do that. If we're under imminent attack, the president can take that upon himself to do it."

This is a great example of why Paul is so abysmally bad at debating. He shouldn't have conceded the high ground to anyone by saying that "nobody's for torture." Giuliani and Romney made it pretty clear that they were, and Hunter didn't exactly back away from the idea. Of course, it gets worse:

Tancredo--"You say that -- that nuclear devices have gone off in the United States, more are planned, and we're wondering about whether waterboarding would be a -- a bad thing to do? I'm looking for "Jack Bauer" at that time, let me tell you." (Laughter, applause.)

Oh that's just great. While we're at it, let's get Dirty Harry, John Rambo, and Batman on the case.

Andrew Sullivan seized on this part of the debate, too:

Some issues really are paramount moral ones. Two candidates opposed [torture] clearly and honorably: McCain and Paul...For me, then, the debate winnowed the field of candidates down to two: McCain and Paul. That was quick."

Which is fine and good, except (and it really, really pains me to point this out) I don't really think that Ron Paul staked out the clear anti-torture stance that McCain did. True, his "newspeak" reply was both admirable and correct (although, probably over the heads of the audience--anyone want to bet on whether as many people got "newspeak" vs. "Jack Bauer"?) But he also said "the president has the authority to do that" which seems to leave things wide-open. I don't know if Dr. Paul meant it that way--he's clearly not a particularly adroit speaker off the cuff--but I think Sullivan (and others) are just assuming Paul is anti-torture because of his libertarian bend.

I read Paul's reply as acknowledging torture for what it is, but also leaving the door open to it in extreme circumstances. I could be misunderstanding him, but if so that is only because he was all over the place. Assuming for the moment that Paul does not actually favor torture, he had an opportunity to separate himself from the field by making that clear, and from McCain by pointing out that we wouldn't even be entertaining these scenarios in the first place but for our belligerent foreign policy, which McCain fully supports and would expand.

Either way, this is disappointing, to say the least.

i may register to vote after all

Ron Paul is running for president.