Mona Charen writes a beautiful editorial detailing everything wrong with Ron Paul, and there is plenty to work with: (h/t bRight & Early)
1. Ron Paul is inconsistent. Though he calls himself a man of principle and is apparently admired as such by his ardent fans, his principles seem somewhat elastic. He rails against the Bush administration for its supposed assault on civil liberties, yet when he was asked at one of the debates whether Scooter Libby deserved a pardon, he said no. “He doesn’t deserve one because he was instrumental in leading the Congress and the people to support a war that we didn’t need to be in.” Notice that he didn’t say it was because Libby was guilty of committing a crime. No, because Libby argued for a policy with which Paul disagreed, he deserved to serve time in prison. Ron Paul, the libertarian, who presumably values liberty above all, is willing to deprive someone else of his because of a policy disagreement?
2. Ron Paul is historically challenged. He argues that by embracing isolationism, he fits within a Republican tradition stretching back to Eisenhower “who stopped the Korean War” and including Nixon “who stopped the war in Vietnam.” Let’s recap. Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons against China. It was the Eisenhower administration that had a hand in toppling Iran’s Mohammad Mossedegh (an intervention that Paul has elsewhere cited as causing the U.S. grief 25 years later when the Islamists took power). Eisenhower also intervened in Guatemala, Cuba (planning for the Bay of Pigs began during his tenure) and Lebanon.
Nixon, an isolationist? Most observers, whatever they may make of detente with the USSR and the opening to China, agree that Nixon was an emphatic internationalist. For the record, he intervened in many countries including Chili, Peru and Cambodia. And he saved Israel by resupplying her during the Yom Kippur war. Neither his successes nor failures grew out of a Paulesque policy of “minding our own business.”
3. Ron Paul is unserious. Suggesting that you will eliminate the IRS, the CIA, the FBI and other government agencies within weeks of taking office is ridiculous. These are bumper stickers, not serious reform proposals.
Mona also goes into one very serious aspect of his candidacy. His crazy supporters. From neo-nazi’s, to twoofers, to the Alex Jones cultists who believe that the Bilderbergers are taking over the world. Many of his supporters say you can’t fault the candidate himself for crazy fans but as Mona states, he plays a game with it. He doesn’t endorse their beliefs but he doesn’t disavow himself from them either with his tales of the big bad government coming to get you, and his appearances on the Alex Jones show doesn’t help.
Instead his campaign attracts these kind of messages:
On Oct. 4 Will Williams, a former leader of the National Alliance, a
neo-Nazi group, posted on the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network that white
supremacy supporters should support Paul for president.
“Till then
I recommend folks get involved in the Ron Paul ‘revolution’ and work
with political activists in your communities who are attracted to his
anti-globalist message,” Williams wrote. “Be disciplined. Blend in; find common ground with them and artfully radicalize those who are receptive and avoid those who are not. … Most
of you would be surprised at how many good people can be exposed to a,
let’s say, ‘pro-majority’ message among the remarkable groundswell of
fed-up, mostly white Ron Paul supporters — many, early on, from the 9/11 truth movement. They
are finding their backbones as they are exposed to more and more hidden
truths, especially about the hidden hand of Jewry behind every foul
venture.”
Which tells us that many are using the Ron Paul campaign as a recruitment drive to find those who could find common ground with them. They care little about RP, but his followers could be fresh meat for their movement.
Kinda makes the the argument made by the Paul campaign against sending money back to neo-nazi’s kinda moot wouldn’t you say? “If they want to waste their money on us we will take it and use it to promote freedom and individual rights, not their agenda,” doesn’t help any when they are using your campaign to get new recruits.
No, I think her best summation of him is that he is unserious. His candidacy is unserious, his followers are unserious, and his politics are unserious.
