Dirty Tricksters Sharpen Knives On Ron Paul

While everybody else is micro-analyzing the New Hampshire primary, here’s a story that flew under the radar.

Stop that candidate!

Somebody in the “Establishment” is scared to death of Ron Paul. I’m guessing it’s Giuliani.

Why?

Well, yesterday, there was a coordinated attempt to smear Ron Paul on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. I was waiting by the old phosphor dot screen, basking in the warm pixels and waiting for the New Hampshire polls to close, so that the networks could instantly tell me who won so I could move on with my life, and enjoy the spectacle of Mitt Romney claiming second prize as a “Silver Medal” in a two man race again,* this time, another ten point defeat, this time by John McCain his only serious rival. Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani were locked in a terrific battle for fourth place, two points behind Iowa’s winner, 11% Mike Huckabee in third place, who didn’t have any serious effort going in New Hampshire.

[* I was gratified with Romney's self-addition of a "gold medal" in the newly-minted Wyoming GOP caucuses, in which he'd swept through the -- heavily Mormon -- attendees for 7 delegates of a possible 8, one of the least impressive victories since the New England Patriots defeated the 1-15 Miami Dolphins a couple of weeks ago to advance towards "the World Series." Fred Barnes at The Weekly Standard can't understand why the dumbass voters find Romney "inauthentic." Perhaps people who call phonies and liars "Inauthentic" would be NATURALLY befuddled. Perhaps GOP pundits are so inured to their mother's milk of mendacity that they can't understand how anyone would take offense at being lied to. Or perhaps Fred Barnes is just a natural-born idiot, hoity-toity vocabulary notwithstanding.]

But The New Republic released a report on the day of the primary, on the afternoon of the primary, and, at 5:40 PM, EST, the number one blog story on Memeorandum‘s automatic blog ranking system was that story:

James Kirchick / The New Republic:
Angry White Man — The bigoted past of Ron Paul. — If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier …
+
Discussion: Weekly Standard, Althouse, The Daily Dish, Matthew Yglesias, Orcinus, Vodkapundit, The Volokh Conspiracy, Roger L. Simon, Lonewacko, Pam’s House Blend, Blogs of War, Preemptive Karma, Transterrestrial Musings, Donklephant, Confederate Yankee, Shakespeare’s Sister and Commentary
–
Discussion:
Michael Goldfarb / Weekly Standard: A Fitting End for Ron Paul
Ann Althouse / Althouse: “The bigoted past of Ron Paul.”
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish: Ron Paul Exposed?
Matthew Yglesias: Ron Paul and Race
David Neiwert / Orcinus: Ron Paul’s far-right foundations
Stephen Green / Vodkapundit: In Defense of Ron Paul
Dale Carpenter / The Volokh Conspiracy: A DAMNING INDICTMENT OF RON PAUL: I’ve never thought Ron Paul’s …
Roger L. Simon: Pauling the Paulites
Lonewacko: Intellectually dishonest James Kirchick
Pam / Pam’s House Blend: TNR: Ron Paul’s racist, homophobic closet
Blogs of War: Ron Paul Exposed: Hate-Filled, Racist, and Just Plain Crazy Newsletters Surface
Becky / Preemptive Karma: Forward or Back? — If you, like me, are ready for a revolution …
Rand Simberg / Transterrestrial Musings: ANGRY WHITE MAN
Justin Gardner / Donklephant: Ron Paul Newsletter Bombshells
Confederate Yankee: Uh-oh — Curtains for Ron Paul? … I doubt this is the last we’ll …
Petulant / Shakespeare’s Sister: Paul’s Homo Skeletons… Free At Last!
Sam Munson / Commentary: Ron Paul’s Past
» All Related Discussion:
Ron Paul 2008:
Press Releases › Ron Paul Statement on The New Republic Article Regarding Old Newsletters — ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – In response to an article published by The New Republic, Ron Paul issued the following statement: — “The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine …
+ Discussion:
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish: Ron Paul Responds
Nick Gillespie / Reason Magazine: Thoughts on Ron Paul
Tommy Oliver / race42008.com: What Has Apparently Been Going On While We Weren’t Paying Close Attention
Michael J. Totten: The Real Racist Candidate
Daniel Koffler / Pajamas Media:
RON PAUL BIGOTRY REVOLUTION — A damning New Republic expose on Ron Paul shows the “libertarian” Republican candidate to be a racist, a homophobe and an anti-Semite. Will his diehard supporters continue to defend a man who called Martin Luther King a gay pedophile?
+ Discussion:
Arnold Kling / EconLog: Ron Paul’s Baggage
Lawhawk / A Blog For All: Will Other Shoe Drop On Ron Paul
Berin M. Szoka / Gays & Lesbians for Ron Paul: Jamie Kirchick: “I don’t think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I’m just cynical”
David Weigel / Reason Magazine:
Exclusive: Ron Paul Responds To New Republic Story
+ Discussion:
The New Republic: Selections From Ron Paul’s Newsletters
Michael Brendan Dougherty / The American Scene: GAY SURVIVALISTS OF RAPETOWN
Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Audio: TNR editor pores through the archives of Ron Paul’s …
Discussion:
Mary Katharine Ham / TownHall Blog: Paul Fans Prep Ground for Conspiracy Theories

And Ham slams the shithouse door,* to mangle a colloquialism. (* “Update: TNR finds Paul’s dirty laundry, in his newsletters of years past. And, by dirty, I mean “racist.” Uh-oh.”)

[NB: I feel compelled to point out that, as they dig into the neo-confederate interlinks, The New Republic sure sounds as though they've been reading this blog. Judge for yourself. I made extensive use of the von Mises documents in my 'Howard Rich' series in 2006.]

Now, I have to say, bullshit. There was an intentional “info-war” type conspiracy to push this meme at this moment. Interesting that many of the selfsame blogs calling for the head of the New Republic’s editor, Franklin Foer, are suddenly congratulatory, most especially William Kristol’s employee Michael Goldfarb, at the Weekly Standard, who led the “charge” against TNR over the “Beauchamp” controversy:

A Fitting End for Ron Paul

Dean Barnett captured the Ron Paul phenomenon best with this analysis, appropriately titled “The ‘Don’t Tase Me, Bro’ Candidate.” But now the New Republic’s Jamie Kirchick has finally found the documents that prove what most of us knew all along: Dr. Paul isn’t just kooky, he’s deranged. (You may not be able to get through to the TNR server, probably because it’s been spiked by Drudge traffic though I don’t discount the possibility that the Ron Paul blimp has met its fate in some kind of kamikaze mission against the TNR offices.) Kirchick found the documents at the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society, and while they often contain no bylines, they are published in Ron Paul’s name, and frequently written in the first person …

I haven’t read the articles in question yet so I can’t offer an informed opinion: I’ve heard the accusations, and noted his endorsement by a Neo-confederate organization in “Slavery – It’s Not Over” on Dec. 30, but that says nothing about what Paul believes, and I’ve carefully withheld judgment on his candidacy, please note. But I CAN see a coordinated effort at a media “explosion” when I’m looking at one.

The tipoff to me was last night on the writerless “A Daily Show” with Jon Steward, who was interviewing a Giuliani “political consultant” who was flogging his book on how conservatives could maybe win, and very transparently said something to the effect: If you would look into Ron Paul’s character, you’d be surprised at what a creepy guy he is.

It was, seemingly, so blatantly THE sound bite that I reran it a couple of times.

And, yup, that was the “money shot”: the sound-bite that the Giuliani campaign wanted out there, KNOWING that the TNR hit piece on Paul would be running earlier in the day. That was the message of the day, the raison d’être of the booking, the book itself a secondary consideration: Ron Paul must DIE! (Metaphorically speaking).

Gee.

An accident? Really?

I always liked that line that “Leonard,” the Martin Landau character in Hitchcock’s North By Northwest speaks from Ernest Lehman’s amazing script:

Leonard: Call it my woman’s intuition, if you will, but I’ve never trusted neatness. Neatness is always the result of deliberate planning.*
Vandamm: She shot him in a moment of fear and anger. You were there yourself. You saw it.

[* You know, like Gloria Steinem's convenient, coincidental and never-manipulative "guest editorial" in that morning's New York Times: "Women Are Never Front-Runners."]

But what seemed strange here was that it WASN’T to affect the outcome of the New Hampshire primary, but, hopefully, to hang a “racist” tag carefully on Ron Paul at the right time to kill his candidacy, and perhaps draw him into a Media Yaktastic™ about “bigotry” towards Barack Obama and the “bigotry” of Ron Paul, and, therefore, Ron Paul’s bigotry towards Barack Obama (using the tried-and-true silly-gistic form: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man, therefore, all men are Socrates).

I think it’s safe to assume that The New Republic was, perhaps, even fed some of the damaging material in return for TNR getting out of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy’s doghouse over that soldier they recently repudiated. And everything’s lovey-dovey on the Potomac. Meantime, Andrew Sullivan equivocates masterfully at the Atlantic’s Daily Dish. (Candidates! Take heed!)

Sure, TNR might be blameless, and merely following its reportorial nose, but it sure is convenient how it fits in with the micro-timing of a mainstream GOP agenda and has virtually nothing whatsoever to do with the timing of any “progressive” political events.

Hmmm. Amazing neatness.

But, while I suggest that you go read the articles and discussion from that blog swarm, I would submit that pro-Giuliani forces (and perhaps others) were out there yesterday to smash Ron Paul. He’s seriously pissing off the elite and the elite bloggers of the GOP, and, while it’s nice to see the GOP Smear Machine focused on one of their own for a change, it is still a machine that needs to die an ugly death.

Speaking of which, and yet not quite a clean segue, have you seen the Ron Paul crowd chasing Sean Hannity down a New Hampshire street, chanting “Fox News Sucks!” yet? It’s here at YouTube. (At the end, you will see Hannity clearly. You can’t see it, but his pants were undoubtedly soiled.)

So, first unjustifiably Fox cans Ron Paul (who was polling much higher than Fred Thompson, who they DID include), and, on the day of the NH primary, the “top story” is about Ron Paul’s “racist” past?

That’s a political “hit” folks, whether he’s guilty or not. So, while we’re deciding about Ron Paul, we can draw some conclusions about those who are arrayed against him.

American politics: just like the brutality of the grade-school playground, only without all that pesky “adult supervision.”

Reuters cribs these almost-final New Hampshire Primary results (emphasis added):

REPUBLICANS (with 96 percent of precincts reporting)

John McCain 86,551 37%

Mitt Romney 73,681 32%

Mike Huckabee 25,958 11%

Rudy Giuliani 20,009 9%

Ron Paul 17,788 8%

Fred Thompson 2,796 1%

Source: Concord Monitor

(Compiled by JoAnne Allen)

And the Democrats (ibid.):

DEMOCRATS (with 96 percent of precincts reporting)

Hillary Clinton 110,172 39%

Barack Obama 102,409 36%

John Edwards 47,650 17%

Bill Richardson 12,936 5%

Dennis Kucinich 3,841 1%

Seriously, if you can’t beat Ron Paul without these kinds of stunts, what the hell good are ya? Good grief. (And think for a moment how you wouldn’t appreciate this kind of stuff being pulled on YOUR candidate).

Courage.

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