Ron Paul Roundup (11-14-07)

[RSDavis]

Ron Paul Roundup (11-14-07)
by RS Davis


Hello Freedomphiles! I want to start off today's Roundup by revisiting Salon's Glenn Greenwald, and the article of his that I gave you yesterday on the smear campaign against Ron Paul. Honestly, it was so good, I really want you to read the whole thing. Here's another excerpt:

• For a long time now, I've heard a lot of people ask: "where are the principled conservatives?" -- meaning those on the Right who are willing to oppose the constitutional transgressions and abuses of the Bush administration without regard to party loyalty. A "principled conservative" isn't someone who agrees with liberals on most issues; that would make them a "principled liberal." A "principled conservative" is someone who aggressively objects to the radicalism of the neocons and the Bush/Cheney assault on our constitution and embraces a conservative political ideology. That's what Ron Paul is, and it's hardly a surprise that he holds many views anathema to most liberals. That hardly makes him a "fruitcake."
  
  Hillary Clinton supported the invasion of a sovereign country that had not attacked us and could not attack us -- as did some of the commentators now aggressively questioning Ron Paul's mental health or, at least, his "seriousness." She supported the occupation of that country for years -- until it became politically unpalatable. That war has killed hundreds of thousands of people at least and wreaked untold havoc on our country. Are those who supported that war extremist, or big weirdos, or fruitcakes?
  
  (...)
  
  That isn't to say that nobody can ever be deemed extremist or even crazy. But I've heard Ron Paul speak many times now. There are a lot of views he espouses that I don't share. But he is a medical doctor and it shows; whatever else is true about him, he advocates his policies in a rational, substantive, and coherent way -- at least as thoughtful and critical as any other political figure on the national scene, if not more so. As the anti-Paul New York Sun noted today, Paul has been downright prescient for a long time in warning about the severe devaluation of the dollar.
  
  And -- as the above-cited efforts to compel Congress to actually adhere to the Constitution demonstrate -- few people have been as vigorous in defense of Constitutional principles as those principles have been mangled and trampled upon by this administration while most of our establishment stood by meekly. That's just true.
  
  Paul's efforts in that regard may be "odd" in the sense that virtually nobody else seemed to care all that much about systematic unconstitutional actions, but that hardly makes him a "weirdo." Sometimes -- as the debate over the Iraq War should have demonstrated once and for all -- the actual "fruitcake" positions are the ones that are held by the people who are welcome in our most respectable institutions and magazines, both conservative and liberal.

Seriously - read it. Justin Riamondo of AntiWar.com is also writing about the neocon smear campaign:

• The wave of support and publicity for Paul has the neocons enraged, and they are busy trying to discredit him with a campaign of unsurpassed villainy. What they have done is actually kind of funny, if you take your humor black: they've simply transferred their usual blather on the foreign policy front to the domestic battlefield. Instead of claiming that Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Hitler and we're facing another Munich, they're saying Ron Paul is Hitler and we're facing another Kristallnacht.
  
  This lunatic ploy, which manages to be at once sinister and ridiculous, is what we might call the Paul-is-a-closet-Nazi meme. It was launched at the ultra-neocon Hot Air – what a perfect name for a site associated with Michelle Malkin! – and migrated, like AIDS on the tip of a used condom, into the liberal precincts of The New Republic's blog via one Jamie Kirchick, an aspiring leader in the League of Junior Neocons. (The same libel was echoed, with elaboration, on the Web site Jewcy.com, which I've written for [and was pleased to do so], in a diatribe written by some "libertarian socialist" guy who surprisingly works for the respectable Jewish Telegraphic Agency. His story of being snubbed by the Paul campaign on account of his being Jewish is debunked here, and by his own editor.)
  
  The Hot Air "scoop" was that some obscure racist who hardly anyone has heard of gave $500 to the Paul campaign. And that is it. That is Paul's great "sin." Hillary Clinton is getting millions from the military-industrial-imperial complex; the foreign lobbyists and the special interests buy and sell our leaders like cattle at a county fair – but what really matters is that Ron Paul received a contribution from someone whose opinions the candidate doesn't endorse and cannot be responsible for. Of course, anyone could be motivated – or persuaded – to contribute to a political campaign for all kinds of reasons. Who's to say who did the persuading, or actually put up the money? "Dirty tricks" and politics are practically synonymous. However, even taking the source of the contribution at face value, going after Paul over $500 from some unknown wacko with dubious motives is really a stretch. It is, I think, very off-putting to liberals of Greenwald's sort, who are beginning to understand why this strained yet energetic effort is being made to discredit an honest, principled, and decent man.

But now on to new stuff. The Chicago Tribune has a piece on Dr Paul that highlight's his consistency and dedication to the message of small government and individual liberty:

• Hammering home a singular message of freedom, free markets, smaller federal government and greater personal responsibility, Paul, at 72, is nothing if not consistent. Personally, he seems very much the same in a one-on-one conversation as he does on the stump: earnest, serious and slightly stunned. Although pleasant, he, unlike most politicians, makes no effort to charm. He leaves an impression that he is out to sell ideas, not himself.
  
  Politically, he also is relentlessly consistent: If it is not explicitly authorized in the U.S. Constitution, Paul opposes it, particularly if it involves spending. He has opposed so many things over his political career that he has been dubbed "Dr. No."
  
  The money that would be saved from the elimination of many federal programs, not to mention the Iraq war, he contends, would more than provide a state-based safety net for those Americans who can't help themselves and for those depending on Social Security, which eventually he would phase out. States, not the federal government, should deal with issues such as abortion and the nature of marriage, he says. And, though he dreams of a day America returns to a gold standard, he would be happy just to see the country stop taking on huge foreign debt and running up deficits by printing money for which it has no solid backing.

USAToday is reporting on the latest million that the Paul campaign has raised:

• Today, the Republican congressman's campaign said it has hauled in another $1 million in the past week from 12,000 additional contributors (which averages to about $83 per donor).

National Review Online is reporting about a visit to the Sean Hannity Show by pollster John Zogby:

• On the Sean Hannity radio program, pollster John Zogby said that Texas Congressman Ron Paul could end up surprising the field - and "embarass a lot of the frontrunners" by wildly exceeding expectations taking 15 to 18 percent in the New Hampshire primary.

Zogby is catching up to me, it appears. I've been saying that for months. The Los Angeles Times may have the answer to why the change of heart:

• Ron Paul and Fred Thompson have seen strong gains in a recent Zogby poll here, but they still have a long way to go. And the poll has some bad news for Rudy Giuliani -- an erosion of support from 37% to 28% since the last Zogby poll here in April, though he still leads Mitt Romney by 8 percentage points.

If you're in New York this Saturday, check out Club Ron Paul. It starts at 9:00PM and is free ($10 donation suggested). There will be DJ's and cheap drinks. Bring a friend who is curious and get your drink on for a good cause. Here's the address:

• NYC Ron Paul HQ
  515 W. 29th St.
  New York, NY 10003

Those of you in Iowa might be interested in an event taking place called the Great Iowa Weekend Walk-Off. Volunteers will be passing out campaign literature and trying to reach as many Iowans as possible before the caucuses. Here are the dates they will be working:

• Saturday, Dec 1st, 9 A.M. till dark @ Des Moines, Iowa
• Saturday, Dec 8th 9 A.M. till dark @ Waterloo, Iowa
• Saturday, Dec 15th 9 A.M. till dark @ Davenport, Iowa

To RSVP and get more info, please email Meghann Walker at:

meghann.walker@ronpaul2008.com

And don't forget the Boston Tea Party money bomb on December 16th:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKZmIzEMUN8

_____________________________

[Tenbatsu]

RSDavis, you are the man. Thanks.

[RSDavis]

RSDavis, you are the man. Thanks.

Thank you.

- R