Lucille
05-02-2014, 12:14 PM
http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/walterjonescommittee/mailings/82/attachments/original/RonPaul.jpg?1398973947
Not sure that's going to help. Looks like the teaocons' pick is the former Bush admin. goon. Because nothing says "small government" like George W. Bush, endless war, and trading liberty for "safety."
Meet the Republican strategist who moved back to North Carolina to beat one of the party’s few anti-war scolds.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/taylor_griffin_tries_to_unseat_walter_jones_what_d oes_north_carolina_s_gop.html
The Republican foreign policy establishment could not stand this guy, but nor could it get rid of him. Griffin, party poobahs believe, can fix that, aided by that 2011 map that removed some of Jones’ base. In the last month, ads from the conservative Ending Spending and the self-explanatory Emergency Committee for Israel have hit the district (where TV is cheap) with commercials insisting that Jones has become an Obama-ite. The ECI ad warns that Jones “preaches American decline” and “opposes sanctions on Iran.” Both ads accuse him of being the “most liberal” member of Congress because his votes against Republican bills like the Paul Ryan budgets ran up his score. Former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour both donated to Griffin. The Paul faction, which keeps getting told it’s taking over the party, dreads losing a race like this.
[...]
“I actually have a libertarian streak,” says Thompson. “There are many issues on which I have the libertarian view. They are just nuts on foreign policy. All you’ve got to do is look at the pronouncements of Ron Paul. It’s just not a credible position. Walter votes against aid to Israel, but the United States has no better, more consistent ally in the Middle East than Israel. We give money to the Palestinians, for Chrissake! So I certainly don’t agree with any of Jones’ reservations about Israel.”
[...]
I eventually get around to asking Griffin how much he agrees with Palin. Over the weekend, she’d joked that waterboarding was a way to “baptize terrorists.” That definitely wasn’t the sort of thing Walter Jones would say. What did he think of the quote?
“Well, Sarah Palin’s a lot more quotable than me,” says Griffin. He pauses for a few seconds. “The struggle between civil liberties and national security did not start yesterday and it won’t end tomorrow. Pre-9/11 we went too far in the wrong direction. Now, we need to ask whether we’re swinging the pendulum too far back in the direction before 9/11 that allowed an attack on our nation. But we cannot forget that there are still people in the world who want to destroy Americans and our country and our way of life.”
Oh look. Teaocons still believe that tired old BS line about how "They hate us for our freedoms." Well, our "freedoms" are gone, and they still hate us, yet they still refuse to accept the actual reason (http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2010/08/09/the-cycle-of-violence-in-afghanistan/).
We talk a little bit about the National Security Agency, and Griffin takes some pleasure in walking me through the SWIFT program, the terror money-tracking initiative he worked on in the Bush administration’s Treasury Department. Griffin repeats what the administration said when the New York Times broke the news of the program’s existence: There might be blood on Bill Keller’s hands. It strikes me that Griffin and Jones have completely divergent views of what the Bush/Cheney legacy’s going to be.
“I observed George W. Bush as a person who got up every morning thinking about what was right for the country,” says Griffin. “You’ve got to remember, this was a time when we felt the threat of a terrorist attack was very real. It affected all of us. We felt an incredible obligation to protect the country from the next terrorist attack. You have to view every decision made in that context. And in that context, I think history will see him very well. History isn’t written yet. The drafts of history written contemporarily are always much less favorable than the drafts of history that are made with the benefit of perspective and hindsight.”
Not sure that's going to help. Looks like the teaocons' pick is the former Bush admin. goon. Because nothing says "small government" like George W. Bush, endless war, and trading liberty for "safety."
Meet the Republican strategist who moved back to North Carolina to beat one of the party’s few anti-war scolds.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/taylor_griffin_tries_to_unseat_walter_jones_what_d oes_north_carolina_s_gop.html
The Republican foreign policy establishment could not stand this guy, but nor could it get rid of him. Griffin, party poobahs believe, can fix that, aided by that 2011 map that removed some of Jones’ base. In the last month, ads from the conservative Ending Spending and the self-explanatory Emergency Committee for Israel have hit the district (where TV is cheap) with commercials insisting that Jones has become an Obama-ite. The ECI ad warns that Jones “preaches American decline” and “opposes sanctions on Iran.” Both ads accuse him of being the “most liberal” member of Congress because his votes against Republican bills like the Paul Ryan budgets ran up his score. Former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour both donated to Griffin. The Paul faction, which keeps getting told it’s taking over the party, dreads losing a race like this.
[...]
“I actually have a libertarian streak,” says Thompson. “There are many issues on which I have the libertarian view. They are just nuts on foreign policy. All you’ve got to do is look at the pronouncements of Ron Paul. It’s just not a credible position. Walter votes against aid to Israel, but the United States has no better, more consistent ally in the Middle East than Israel. We give money to the Palestinians, for Chrissake! So I certainly don’t agree with any of Jones’ reservations about Israel.”
[...]
I eventually get around to asking Griffin how much he agrees with Palin. Over the weekend, she’d joked that waterboarding was a way to “baptize terrorists.” That definitely wasn’t the sort of thing Walter Jones would say. What did he think of the quote?
“Well, Sarah Palin’s a lot more quotable than me,” says Griffin. He pauses for a few seconds. “The struggle between civil liberties and national security did not start yesterday and it won’t end tomorrow. Pre-9/11 we went too far in the wrong direction. Now, we need to ask whether we’re swinging the pendulum too far back in the direction before 9/11 that allowed an attack on our nation. But we cannot forget that there are still people in the world who want to destroy Americans and our country and our way of life.”
Oh look. Teaocons still believe that tired old BS line about how "They hate us for our freedoms." Well, our "freedoms" are gone, and they still hate us, yet they still refuse to accept the actual reason (http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2010/08/09/the-cycle-of-violence-in-afghanistan/).
We talk a little bit about the National Security Agency, and Griffin takes some pleasure in walking me through the SWIFT program, the terror money-tracking initiative he worked on in the Bush administration’s Treasury Department. Griffin repeats what the administration said when the New York Times broke the news of the program’s existence: There might be blood on Bill Keller’s hands. It strikes me that Griffin and Jones have completely divergent views of what the Bush/Cheney legacy’s going to be.
“I observed George W. Bush as a person who got up every morning thinking about what was right for the country,” says Griffin. “You’ve got to remember, this was a time when we felt the threat of a terrorist attack was very real. It affected all of us. We felt an incredible obligation to protect the country from the next terrorist attack. You have to view every decision made in that context. And in that context, I think history will see him very well. History isn’t written yet. The drafts of history written contemporarily are always much less favorable than the drafts of history that are made with the benefit of perspective and hindsight.”