Rand Paul: Dangerous for Trey Grayson

After Rand Paul raised another $600,000 for his campaign during the 4th quarter, Kentucky Secretary of State and establishment favorite Trey Grayson had to know that he was in trouble. This is especially true considering the National Republican Senatorial Committee threw another big money fundraiser for Grayson and he still couldn’t keep up with the modest donations Rand Paul receives over the internet. A fundraiser last Wednesday, December 16, on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, yielded over $260,000 with the average donation continuing to be less than $100 for the Bowling Green doctor.

In November, Rand Paul was polling within the margin of error with Grayson in a WHAS poll. Now Rand Paul leads Grayson in another poll, this one conducted by Public Policy Polling where the former leads 54-18 among people who consider the GOP too liberal. Clearly Rand Paul is gaining the support of grassroots activists. He is not getting big donations and he is passing the litmus test on whether he’s an empty suit politician or a true conservative who refuses to play the “Me Too” game that the Republican Party has played since the glory days of Alf Landon.

For months, the secretary of state’s website was dormant on the issues. He probably figured he didn’t need to worry about forming his platform until after he coasted to the nomination. But since Rand Paul has been such a tireless campaigner traveling all across the Commonwealth and reaching disaffected voters for the better part of the year, and with better-than-expected poll numbers, he might just pull off the shocker.

Needless to say, Trey Grayson is getting pretty angry that his token challenger is not following the script and allowing Trey to coast to the primary victory; his coronation might have to be called off altogether.

It’s already been discussed here, at rather great length, that the Establishment is doing all it can to make sure that Rand Paul stays in Bowling Green in 2010, where he belongs. A county party chairman supporting Grayson went to the trouble to concoct a juvenile website, Too Kooky for Kentucky, to show how dangerous Rand Paul is. But in trying to show how loony Rand Paul and his views are, the chairman comes off as childish.

The newest controversy involves the now-former campaign coordinator of the Rand Paul campaign, Chris Hightower.

Last week, the liberal blog Barefoot and Progressive, broke a story about a myspace page attributed to Mr. Hightower features a picture of a lynched man accompanied by a racial epithet.

Chris Hightower quickly said, "I definitely deny anything that has anything to do with that. It’s not me. I’m definitely not a racist." He resigned from the campaign within a day.

But Hightower's explanation seems plausible. The controversial content was posted by someone else. It was plain to see that Mr. Hightower did not post the scurrility, only that he did not delete it – a consistently libertarian thing to do (although claiming that he's never had a myspace page is a different matter). I myself have never deleted a facebook, myspace, or blog comment before. I support free speech, too, even when it’s ugly.

But even though it was a liberal blogger who dug up the thought crime of a John Doe, it certainly works to the benefit of Trey Grayson. What better way to continue the smearing of Rand Paul than to suggest that the candidate himself has poor judgment because of the way a campaign staffer polices a personal social networking website page. As Rand Paul told WBKO (ABC) News in Bowling Green about the irony of the incident: "I think we live in an era where we’re responsible for what even other people post on your website."

This also shows the lengths that the Grayson campaign will go to in order to scare Kentucky Republican voters away from Rand Paul.

Grayson himself used this as a springboard for denouncing Rand Paul’s “disturbing views” on national security with “Rand Paul: Dangerous for Kentucky.”

While people might get distracted by "Myspacegate," supporters of Rand Paul should take notice that something else was in play. Perhaps Trey Grayson wasn’t necessarily interested in exploiting the racism of some acquaintance of a staffer’s. Perhaps he used this controversy as an opportunity to misrepresent Rand Paul’s views on foreign policy and national security, a contentious divide between the platforms of the two candidates.

Here’s what the secretary of state himself had to say on his website:

"However, when pressed by the Louisville Courier-Journal if he agreed or disagreed with Hightower's belief that the United States government was responsible for the attacks on September 11th, Rand Paul's campaign said it was a 'complicated situation' with 'truth on both sides.'"

"'Let me help you find the truth, Rand, if you can handle it. The attacks on 9/11 were pre-meditated and carried out by terrorists who wanted to disrupt the American way of life,' said Grayson campaign manager Nate Hodson. 'This is a foolish and dangerous position that continues the pattern of disturbing views from the Paul campaign. His views on national security have been as consistent as they have been misguided.'

So perhaps the issue is not about the political correctness of myspace content, but the chance to paint Chris Hightower, and through association, Rand Paul, as something much more dangerous to the Republican Establishment: a 9/11 Truther.

But Trey Grayson counts on readers to not read the Courier-Journal article where Hightower is accused of being a "Truther."

The image the Grayson campaign wants to create is one that paints Rand Paul as a weird, kooky guy who has a high-level staffer who believes the U.S. government deliberately flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Rather, what Chris Hightower said, in a letter to the editor, was

"My goodness, how soon some people forget we invaded them … do you not remember when we installed a foreign leader in Iran in the 1950s, do you not remember putting military bases in Saudi Arabia? Or, perhaps, you have forgotten the attack on Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, and the continued arming of Israel."

What we learn here is that Trey Grayson is more than content to continue peddling the government-approved version of the cause of terrorism: They hate us because we’re free and anyone who thinks there is any other reason is loony, unpatriotic, and un-American.

So regardless of whether Chris Hightower harbors any sympathy at all with a moronic statement left on a myspace page is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Grayson is struggling at the polls and knows it. The only recourse they have now is the only one they’ve had this whole time: fear.

Fear Rand Paul because he doesn’t have GOP-approved views on foreign policy. Fear Rand Paul because he knows somebody who might know somebody who is a racist. Fear Rand Paul because he has curly hair.

Trey Grayson wants voters to think Rand Paul is dangerous. That’s true. Rand Paul is dangerous. For Trey Grayson.

Please donate here.

Rand Paul Campaign Stop

with the author

Henderson, KY

The temperature outside was frigid but there was a warm blanket of political activity inside "Rookie's Sports Bar" in downtown Henderson, Kentucky where U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul met with over 50 of his supporters, including the author of this blog.

Largely an informal event, the senate candidate feared and loathed by the establishment was all smiles as he got to meet with a diverse cast of his supporters. Young and old, black and white, people came out to hear the doctor from Bowling Green talk about balanced budgets, lowering taxes, term limits, and the value of the dollar. As another attendee remarked to me, we didn't hear a single worn-out Republican catchphrase. Rather, the candidate pointed out that President Obama is easy to target and that the real challenge is to get the Republican Party back in shape. It doesn't matter if we harass the president for being reckless with the nation's finances when Republicans do no better themselves.

In a sight inconceivable two years ago when Rand Paul’s father was running for president, the would-be senator is actually a viable candidate and has reason to be upbeat. The last poll conducted in November had Rand within the margin of error against the one-time presumptive candidate, Trey Grayson. The primary is still six months away and despite the rantings of cranky party chairmen, Rand Paul is not too kooky for a lot of folks in Kentucky.

The candidate, before and after his speech, took time to engage with nearly every attendee. In an act that didn't go unnoticed, the candidate was not "fashionably late" or any other euphemism to justify why his time is more important than that of his supporters, but was actually at the venue before the scheduled time. In that same vein, when the candidate departed, it was not flanked by highly-paid suits, but by carrying the boxes of his campaign materials himself.

If the bright mood of the candidate, the money he continues to rake in, and discontent among the ruling party are any indications, then the eye surgeon from Bowling Green will be doing a lot of smiling in 2010.

As anyone in attendance on Thursday Night knew, he has already left a significant imprint in the lives of many of his fellow Kentuckians.

Poll: Rand Paul leads Trey Grayson

Rand Paul for U.S. Senate

According to a new WHAS-11 (Louisville) poll, Rand Paul leads among Republicans in the Senate race six months before the primary, but within the margin of error:

Paul: 35%
Grayson: 32%
Others or undecided: 34%
4.1% margin of error

This is an increase of 5 points for Rand Paul and a decrease of 9 points for Trey Grayson from an earlier WHAS poll in August.

WHAS's coverage below. Notice at the end how they begin to wonder if the hand-picked establishment candidate might have to be replaced by a veteran George W. Bush fundraiser!



Also see the Reuters story here.

Fear! Fear! Fear the kookiness of Rand Paul!

Feeling the heat that Rand Paul is a real threat to beat him in the Republican primary, establishment pick Trey Grayson has resorted to personal attacks more than six months before the primary.

The move isn’t even a surprise. Being the son of Ron Paul has its downsides: the establishment hates you.

By raising over $1 million in the third quarter, nearly doubling the amount raised by the secretary of state, Grayson knows that young Dr. Paul will be able to get his name out there and be a force to be reckoned with.

Attempting to turn Rand Paul’s asset as an outsider on its head, Grayson earlier this month said, “He’s an outsider. He’s not a Kentuckian. You know, I’m a 5th generation Kentuckian, educated here in the public schools, raising my family here.”

“I’m a 5th generation Kentuckian.” As my friend Don Rickles would say, “Would you like a cookie?”

Something deep inside tells me that Grayson did not say the same thing to Alabama-born and ergo fellow outsider Mitch McConnell last month when the senate minority leader and 16 other Republican senators who supported last year’s bailouts threw a $500 per plate Washington D.C. fundraiser for him.

But Rand Paul, who has lived in the Bluegrass State since 1993, landed the real zinger in this verbal dust-up: “I’ve been a Kentuckian longer than Grayson’s been a Republican,” reminding voters that their Republican secretary of state was a Democratic delegate for Bill Clinton in 1992.

The other recent smear against Rand Paul is pure farce. It’s so bad . . .

In unison: “How bad was it?”

It’s so bad that if I didn’t know better, I would have suspected the Rand Paul campaign of making it up just so they could make their opponent and his supporters look foolish.

Trey Grayson can thank Breathitt County GOP chairman and campaign donor Mike Bryant for his cute website: Too Kooky For Kentucky.

The title itself is not surprising either. In “Fire Two!” after Rand Paul was smeared by the Voice Tribune of Louisville, I wrote in this blog that it won’t be long until Rand is branded as “just the kook son of chief kook Ron Paul.” Lo and behold, the picture at the head of Too Kooky for Kentucky has Ron Paul on the left and Rand Paul on the right with each of them wearing a dunce cap.

Interviewed on WTVQ-TV in Lexington we meet Mr. Mike Bryant. Rotund, bald, and donning squarish eye glasses, he kind of looks like me without the long sideburns.

After obviously searching for some coherent criticism, Bryant says, “Really, we don’t know yet what Rand stands for in a lot of cases.”

This complaint is laughable in a couple of ways.

Neither Trey Grayson nor any of his supporters have any ground on which to stand when they charge that they don’t know what Rand Paul stands for. As I’ve pointed out numerous times here, the Paul campaign website provides detailed descriptions of his positions whereas as Grayson’s campaign website, until very recently, was as bare as Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard when it came to the issues.

The other point here is that after only a brief survey of Too Kooky for Kentucky, one can easily conclude that the editor does clearly know what Rand Paul stands for. His claim on TV was, let’s say, excessively disingenuous.

He knows that Rand Paul is an antiwar Republican, he knows that he is against the Patriot Act, and he knows that he wants to end the War on Drugs. Of course, all of this makes him “kooky.” Kind of makes me wonder if Mr. Bryant would have dared call the late William F. Buckley a “kook,” who in the last years of his life expressed sympathy with each of those views.

And every post in Mr. Bryant’s little site is entered under the pen name “Ben Franklin.”

In an entry that is probably too ironic for the Too Kooky for Kentucky editor to get is when “Ben Franklin” writes “Like Obama and Kerry – Rand Paul Speaks out Against the Patriot Act.”

If I could get old Doc Brown’s time machine up and running again, I’d like to take this “Ben Franklin” so he can meet the original Ben Franklin. You know, the one who said, “Anyone who would sacrifice liberty for security will lose both.”

Examples like this could go on and on. It already has here.

So why fuss over Too Kooky for Kentucky, an obviously ill-conceived smear website? Well, if it was edited by a Joe Schmo Trey Grayson supporter, it wouldn't be worth any trouble.

But it's not run by a Joe Schmo. It's edited by a county party chairman who actually did the voters of Kentucky a huge favor. Grayson, who appears devoid of any discernible political philosophy, has been shown exactly what is expected of him as a senator.

He is expected to be a Bush Republican.

He is expected to do war, he is expected keep government appraised of our personal lives, he is expected to ignore the Constitution and he is expected to do war some more.

But this is also the Kentucky Republican Party strategy: Slime Rand Paul.

They cannot debate him on the issues. If they could, they wouldn’t have to call him a “kook” or disparage his outsider status. Or they could tell us about the “unkooky” ideas of Trey Grayson.

What they want is for Rand Paul to just go away. He’s inconveniencing Trey Grayson’s ascension as Mitch McConnell Jr.

But since Rand Paul insists on yapping his gums about antiquated ideas like the Constitution and balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility the Grayson people will have just one card to play:

The FEAR RAND PAUL CARD.

And they will play it, as they say in Kentucky, 'til the cows come home.

*

Stick it to Trey Grayson, Mitch McConnell, and their lackeys by donating to a candidate with real ideas here.

Update: Call and Adams, the Voice-Tribune columnists who smeared Rand in August (here and here) issued him a back-handed compliment last week in this column. They write, "Traditional candidates must secretly envy guys like U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul, who can raise big money over the internet from donors all over the country in events named 'money bombs.'" But notice their contempt when they say, "If Paul is smart, he'll use the extra time on his hands to campaign with Kentuckians who can actually vote for him."

I wonder if they had the same advice for Trey Grayson, the recent beneficiary of a $500/plate D.C. fundraiser. Since it was in Washington D.C., I'm sure there were only Kentuckians there scratching checks for Grayson. Oh, and according to the Paul campaign, their August "money bomb" had an average donation of $86 with 70% of the donations under $100. Just some food for thought about the "big money" Rand Paul gets on the internet.

Compassionate Conservatism Revisited?

As gubernatorial races approach in New Jersey and Virginia, Republicans are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the beginning of a comeback. Delivering one or both of the governorships into GOP hands may be an early sign that Americans are not receptive to the change of Barack Obama’s status quo-ism.

This prospect can be very enticing. There is some speculation that Sarah Palin might run for office again. Her endorsement of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in New York’s 23rd district may make the difference in the 2009 special election. So too might Arlen Specter be sent packing and Chris “Countrywide” Dodd might finally pay for that sweetheart mortgage.

While extricating those suits from their seats might be attractive, one has to wonder what the Republicans have to offer the country other than the “R”’s beside their names.

One potential sleeper contest in 2010 is the Florida senate race. Charlie Crist, global warming-monger and stimulus money beggar, has announced that he will not seek another term as governor so he can run for the senate seat vacated by Mel Martinez. Crist is the favorite in both the primary and the general election, but he faces a challenge from a former underling, one-time Florida Speaker of the House Marco Rubio.

Rubio’s positives make him popular among the grassroots activists. He is a Fair Taxer, supporting a national sales tax instead of the income tax, a solution that fellow anti-IRSites like myself fear might only rearrange a problem instead of solving it. He favors a balanced budget amendment, a position sure to make conservatives swoon in reaction to President Obama’s ridiculous spending habits.

The benefit of Marco Rubio is that he is of Cuban ancestry. The media and haughty liberals never shirk an opportunity to remind the GOP that they are the “Old White Guy Party.” Rubio’s Hispanic heritage automatically catapults him to the front of the line of Republican examples of diversity where he can sit with Michael Steele, Sarah Palin, and Bobby Jindal.

National Review placed the 38-year-old on the cover of its September 7 issue claiming “Yes, He Can” and that the party’s conservative activists need to get behind this “true conservative.”

Whether young Rubio is a “true conservative” or not is a sub question to the earlier one of what the Republicans have to offer: What does a “true conservative” have to offer during the Obama regnancy? What is “conservative” in the post-Bush era?

In a National Review Online interview with the insurgent, Rubio “counts former Gov. Jeb Bush as one of his most important political mentors” and the former governor has since endorsed Rubio as has son, Jeb Jr.

Not one to beat a dead elephant, but conservatives ought to ask themselves one of these days, What exactly has the Bush family done for conservative causes? Break promises not to raise taxes? Take turns invading Iraq? Spent like there was no tomorrow and completely nullifying any good tax cuts could do? Of course Jeb is his own man, but there are many sins of the father and brother for which he must atone.

One of the other GOP veterans who has hitched himself to the Rubio wagon is Mike Huckabee, who is reciprocating the endorsement Rubio made for him in 2008. When asked why he supported Huckabee, who had difficulty attracting much support outside single issue social conservatives, Rubio said,

“Two things I like about Mike Huckabee: One was his support of the Fair Tax . . . Second, I thought that of all the candidates, he did the best job of connecting how the people’s social and moral well-being cannot be separated from their economic well-being.” (emphasis mine)

“the people’s social and moral well-being cannot be separated from their economic well-being.”

Translation: excessive domestic spending known during the Bush years as Compassionate Conservatism.

Toeing both sides of a fine line to appease immigration restrictionists in the party as well as the open borders crowd, Rubio concedes that “On immigration, [Retiring Republican Senator Mel Martinez] voted for a package I probably would not have voted for . . .” (emphasis mine)

Rubio also chooses to toe both sides when it comes to the biggest fiasco of the generation, the Iraq War. Here he takes Jonah Goldberg’s Orwellian position on Iraq: it was a mistake but it was not wrong:

“Obviously, the Iraq War has had the chilling effect of making us question all intelligence findings now. . . . I think that there is some credence, in hindsight, to the notion that the real battlefield was in Afghanistan all along. . . .

“But understand at the same time, we were being told that Iraq was on the verge of gaining a nuclear capability. . . . So it’s impossible to sit here and give a fair analysis in hindsight.”

Translation: OK, maybe the Iraq War wasn’t such a great idea after all. Maybe. But who are we to say it was a mistake? It was just a war. No reason to worry about responsibility for it.

So for all the talk about the Republican Party getting its act together and finally getting back to its conservative principles, if it ever really had them, the "conservatism" during the Obama dispensation looks eerily similar to the one during the days of the Bush regime.

Mushy immigration rhetoric, government taking an active role in the people’s “well-being” and a persistent refusal to criticize GOP foreign policy, Rubio is probably better than Charlie Crist, but might we entertain the possibility that there might be a better potential standard-bearer?

Sending Rush to the Pillory - Letter to the Editor

(The following letter to the editor will be appearing shortly in the Belleville [IL] News-Democrat.)

The news that Rush Limbaugh will not be a partial owner of the St. Louis Rams should not be too surprising. The outcry was loud, widespread, and predictable. If Mr. Checketts had not removed Rush from the bidding group, the PC football league would never have approved the deal.

More of a GOP hack than a truly principled conservative, Rush is best at being provocative and talking about football.

While most of the negative reaction has been directed at quotes of spurious origin, people seem to be consumed by the wrong issue. What is plain to see is that while we have freedom of speech in this country, some speech is more equal than others.

Even if the most acidic of Rush’s quotes are real, what difference should it make? If a statement is offensive, let us discuss why it is offensive instead of criminalizing the opinions of private citizens some of us don’t like.

This attitude is also evident in Rush’s quotes that are verifiable.

Whose civil liberty is infringed upon when we are pressured from discussing whether a particular football player might be overrated because of his skin color? Is it the person who asks it or is it the rest of us who are to resist talking about that because it is considered offensive to somebody?

Like Don Imus two years ago, Rush Limbaugh is guilty of a thought crime against elites who are uninterested in hearing anyone else’s opinion except the ones they give us.

Holocausts are Easy to Come By

When Florida Congressman Alan Grayson called America’s level of uninsured people a “holocaust,” he did more than touch a few nerves.

Taking the inability or unwillingness of millions of Americans without health insurance and planting in many the imagery of the systematic deaths of over 10 million people in the 1940s, Congressman Grayson made a statement that was far beyond the line. However, considering the rhetoric used in modern politics, it is hardly a surprising analogy.

Coupled with these terms are always the inevitable parallels to World War II. “The Good War” is always selected as the morality tale on behalf of every modern day intervention, be it domestic or foreign. For example, Moammar Gaddhafi, Slobodan Milosevic, and Saddam Hussein have all been tagged “the second Hitler” making Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at least the fifth Hitler by this count.

All of these criminals have been labeled a “Hitler” at one point or another and, of course, “second Holocaust” usually follows shortly thereafter.

These images to World War II, Hitler, and the Holocaust are always convenient in making a political point, often out of desperation. No one in polite society would say that they disagree with the outcome of World War II, think Hitler was just misunderstood, or that the Holocaust was a good event that should be commemorated on the church calendar. No. Those three are the greatest consensuses in the western world.

Since nobody thinks the Holocaust was good, who would dare oppose anything when the alternative would be a “holocaust”? Don’t want a holocaust? Well, we’d better pass this health care legislation. Don’t want a holocaust? We’d better take out Saddam Hussein. Don’t want a second Holocaust? Then you know what we should do with Ahmadeinjad.

Likewise, recent news that the Iranians have an underground nuclear facility near the city of Qom, southwest of Tehran, has elicited the usual catcalls of “appeasement” and the necessity of regime change or sanctions in Iran.

Not satisfied with only having wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, neoconservatives and warmongers in both parties are anxious to begin the bombing of Iran over weapons no one can say with any certainty that they have.

A lot of people were convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could hit either the U.S. or Israel. Nothing of the sort was found and Iraq proved to be far weaker that we suspected. As for Israel, their actions in Lebanon in 2006 and Palestine last year should prove that they are more than capable of defending themselves. Plus, whether Iran would be able to hit Israel should be immaterial to America. Israel’s security is Israel’s responsibility.

But it’s the specter of “holocaust” that is meant to fill Americans’ minds with images of destruction, carnage, and total death, whether there is evidence to justify the illustration or not.

The same is true with Congressman Grayson. There is no evidence to suggest that unless there is a “public option” or universal health care that people will just die by the thousands. Likewise, there is no evidence that Iran is using this new facility in Qom to build a bomb to drop on Israel. But the holocaust plea is issued when its users know their case is weak.

The public option and the road to universal health care in the short term is dying. Countless charges of racism against opponents of government sponsored health care have rendered any hope of meaningful or bipartisan reform moot. Eight years in Afghanistan with no end in sight and numbers turning against the enterprise make it difficult for President Obama to answer his general’s plea to plunge America further into the Afghan malaise. That same war-weary population is not willing to militarily engage Iran unless they know that THIS one is a genuine threat to us. So far it has not been demonstrated.

But this phenomenon ably demonstrates the bankruptcy of America’s two-party system and their collective pandering to the lowest common denominator. Every dying political cause can be reduced to Hitler, the Holocaust, or World War II. It’s time for Americans to awaken and see that instead of facing a holocaust around every corner, the problem is the politicians who talk down to Americans by using these references to scare them into total dependence.

It is insulting and demeaning to a free people.

Is Glenn Beck Healthy for the Right?

Following the anti-Obama festivities of the weekend of September 11, 2009, headlined by Glenn Beck’s 9.12 Project and march on Washington, one must certainly attest that the radio and TV host wields some amount of influence on the grassroots Right and beyond. Beck’s exposure of the depravity of ACORN and a rare willingness to sharply criticize the Bush administration make him stand out among the conservative commentariat. But could Beck be just as much of the problem of the Right as its solution?

Watching in 2009, it might appear as though Beck would be a suitable spokesman for a Bush-less Republican Party. He wails against the bank bailouts and the readiness with which Dubya expanded the government. Beck’s eagerness to attack the Bush administration is commendable and many of those attacks are those which Republicans and conservatives need to hear because if someone’s goal is to cut government, restore individual liberty, and be governed by laws instead of men, the first fact that must be grasped is that today's Republican Party is not your friend.

The problem with windbag talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and their minor league impersonators, is that they never seriously challenge the status quo of their party. This is done to the point that conservative talk radio may as well be called Republican talk radio. After all, these are the folks who jumped on the bandwagon for pro-choice, state-run health care Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. The speed with which they followed the empty suit perfectly illustrates how empty the vessel of contemporary American conservatism is. And it is why the talk radio medium ought to be generally, but not completely, ignored.

Is Glenn Beck different? It’s true that he frequently has Ron Paul as a guest, as well as his son, Rand. Judge Andrew Napolitano, who readily calls Republican and Democratic politicians the criminals that they are, is a regular guest host. Another regular is Professor Kevin Gutzman, a contributor to takimag.com, among the most anti-Bush and anti-GOP establishment webzines, Left or Right, to talk about states’ rights, an issue faux conservatives avoid like the Bubonic plague. Plus, Glenn Beck openly criticizes the Republican Party when the sycophants are still tip-toeing around the fact that maybe Bush might have, possibly, done some things that might not have been quite okay.

I actually somewhat like Beck. His schtick can get a little tiresome, going from crying to yelling to having a fire-side chat all in the same afternoon, but he also does some relevant reporting. Everyone following the news right now has heard about Beck’s reporting of the ACORN scandals. He’s the only TV or radio personality I can think of who has actually taken a skeptical view of the Federal Reserve and the insane monetary practices of printing a trillion dollars. He’s also the only TV host I’m aware of who actually has members of Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty for segments on his show. To people like Rush and Hannity, Ron Paul is still a four-letter word.

Beck’s 9.12 Project is admirable and rather uncontroversial. “Common Sense” was a decent read and was actually pretty independent-minded, calling out both parties for their extravagance but most of it falling on the Democrats.

However, a recent mash-up video has surfaced where Beck can be seen calling Ron Paul a “crazy, kooky guy,” suggesting that last year’s bank bailout “wasn’t nearly enough” and that he “supported the Patriot Act.” Interspersed were neocon party lines of Ahmadinejad as Hitler who was making preparations for a second holocaust. (Also see this video where he contemptibly smears Ron Paul supporters for having a “money bomb” on November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, as domestic terrorists, oddly foreshadowing the Obama administration’s reports about potential right wing domestic terrorism which Beck would ironically denounce.)

Such a video obviously has the potential to be easily taken out of context and spliced together in Michael Moore fashion to make Beck look like a despicable flip-flopper. Indeed, anyone could be embarrassed by seeing their worst predictions all glued together. For example, in a needlessly rambling blog from over a year ago, I implied support for the war in Afghanistan over the one in Iraq, a position I certainly do not hold today.

Since the material from the nefarious video was originally uttered, Beck has admitted that he did support the Patriot Act but regrets it. In a more surprising video, Beck reveals that

“I guess the scales are falling off my eyes. . . . In 1900 with Teddy Roosevelt . . . we’re going to tell the rest of the world, ‘We’re going to spread democracy.’ . . . in Latin America, we really became thuggish and brutish. It only got worse after the next progressive came into office . . . the next one was a Democratic progressive, Woodrow Wilson, and we did, we empire built. The Democrats felt we needed to empire build with one giant, global government, it was originally . . . League of Nations . . . then it became the United Nations, one world government. The Republicans took it as ‘We’re going to lead the world and we’ll be the leader of it.’ I don’t think we should be either of those. I think we need to mind our own business and protect our own people. When somebody hits us, hit back hard, and then come home.” (emphasis mine)

If there is one issue that continues to unite the mainstream Right, outside of opposition to Obama, it’s the unwavering support for Bush’s wars. Even if it took him more than seven years, Glenn Beck should be commended for speaking out against enduring military occupations. May he keep it up.

But it’s still quite precarious that Glenn Beck has shed his more odious positions once the Republicans were thoroughly repudiated. His antics are a bit annoying, bordering on bad soap opera acting, but he still displays better independence than his more unoriginal talk radio colleagues.

So, is Glenn Beck healthy for the Right? Maybe, maybe not. Is he part of the solution or is he part of the problem? If he’s part of the problem, he’s far less of it than Rush, Hannity, Levin or Coulter.

Conservatives have been betrayed in an unrepentant fashion for the entirety of this century. If the evolution of Beck’s positions mean anything, it means that he might be a spokesman and a platform for an effective and genuine anti-government movement. It also means he’s someone who’s worth keeping at an arm’s length for any Republican Party that wants to move past the errors of the Bush administration.

Cash for Clunkers Flunks Out

The following letter appeared in the Wednesday, August 26, 2009 edition of The Nashville (IL) News.

While enthusiastically received, the government's Cash for Clunkers program is but a band-aid that offers no long-term solutions.

We have been told that since so many people have lined up to exchange their "clunkers" for a rebate to buy a newer, fuel-efficient car, the economy is turning a corner because people are spending again. But it seems like no one is asking where the money for these rebates is coming from. The government is in spiraling debt, but taxes haven't increased nor have any programs been scaled back, so we know that the governent hasn't raised any new revenue.

Where did this money come from? It had to either be borrowed or printed out of thin air. In either scenario, we are all further in debt or face inflation. What this means is that at a time when people should be saving their money, the government is encouraging people to accrue more debt.

We are not far removed from the housing crisis that resulted in millions of people facing foreclosure and repossession. The money supply was expanded to accommodate all the loans issued that ultimately could not be paid back. Even with generous rebates, we will ultimately face inflation, and poorer folks are destined to default on car payments. And even though people flocked to car dealers for a couple of weeks, factories are not re-opening, closed dealerships remain closed, and workers are still laid off.

Like a shot of morphine, Cash for Clunkers makes us feel good about the economy for a little while, but eventually the high goes away and we return to reality. And that reality is that Cash for Clunkers was a $3 billion program that brought no new jobs to a struggling economy and deepened the debt.

Happy driving.

Carl Wicklander
Nashville

Edward M. Kennedy (1932-2009), R.I.P.

When news broke on Wednesday morning that Senator Kennedy passed away, it was shocking in the sense that it was really over. It was common knowledge that the last Kennedy son had only a little time left. Turning the TV to C-SPAN and seeing images of the senator in his younger years was all the indication necessary to realize that his end had come.

When a titanic character like Ted Kennedy passes away, it can be easy to forget the things we did not like about them and only remember the good. It seems too petty to squabble once they’re dead. If we’re lucky, and the deceased wasn’t a nefarious scoundrel, we really can dwell on their finer side. But in this case, we have quite a struggle.

At worst, he was a murdering adulterer. At best, he was a manslaughterer with marital indiscretions that were as endemic among the Kennedy men as political ambition.

It’s not a burden for me to confess that I had no sympathy for the political positions that Ted Kennedy held. From his numerous immigration boondoggles to ruinous health care overhauls to education bar-lowerings, I found little agreeable with his agenda. Aside from his vote against the Iraq war, I would have to strain to think of a single vote of his that I would applaud.

With a health care debate literally raging and its chief spokesman going to the grave, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that his death will be used by his political allies to propagate their cause or that his enemies will continue to use his name and image as the “Liberal Lion” as a bludgeon against it. Indeed, even in death, Ted Kennedy will remain with us.

One of nine children, one of four sons, he had the closest to a natural death of any of his brothers. It’s difficult not to feel sorry for someone forced to endure that sort of tragedy. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy and neither would I wish it on Edward Kennedy either.

Love him or hate him. Those were the only options for Ted Kennedy in life. For what he did in his public and private life, I am not ashamed to admit that I hated him. But not enough hate to be pleased that he breathed his last breath late Tuesday night.

Rest in peace, Teddy. Let us bury the hatchet with you.