Posted on 03/19/2010 6:41:08 AM PDT by IbJensen
The Establishment neo-conservative wing of the Republican Party has a problem in Kentucky: Their anointed U.S. Senate candidate, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, is losing. According to a March 7 SurveyUSA poll, Dr. Rand Paul would defeat Grayson 42-27 percent if the May 18 primary were held now. “Paul, an eye surgeon, political activist, and son of Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul, is ahead among all demographic groups and in all parts of the state,” SurveyUSA reported.
So Grayson and establishment Republicans have come up with a solution to bolster their lackluster campaign: Lie about Paul.
Grayson's latest television ad touts “facts” about Rand Paul that are patent lies, and a little more than a cursory look at Grayson's websites reveals them to be obvious lies. Grayson's television ad states:
We shouldn’t put our security at risk by “cutting what we’re doing militarily” or by releasing terrorists held at Guantanamo back into battle against our troops in Afghanistan as my opponent has advocated.
A related YouTube.com video posted by the Grayson campaign claims that Rand Paul wants to “wants to close Guantanamo, release terrorists.” The video then quotes Dr. Paul out of context claiming that he would do the following to hardened terrorists held at Guantanamo:
Yeah, that’s a tough one. I don’t know what you do with them. I think they should mostly be sent back to their country of origin. Or to tell you the truth I’d drop them back off into battle. If you’re not going to convict them, and you can’t convict them, and you’re unclear, drop ‘em off back into Afghanistan, it’ll take them awhile to get back over here.
Grayson says this is proof that Paul advocates “releasing the terrorists held there back into battle against our troops.” It would indeed be troubling if Dr. Paul favored setting hardened terrorists free to attack American soldiers in the field. Despite the fact that the above was a completely accurate quote, it was a lie because Paul wasn't talking about terrorists at all. Rather, he was talking about innocent people held at Guantanamo. The very next sentences (ironically, also posted in small type at Grayson's website) of Dr. Paul's words in the very same radio interview explain the context:
It’s complicated though. I read something the other day, of 779 people at Gitmo, 90% were captured by foreign fighters, not by us. So some of them are turned in, you know, Afghanistan has had rival warlord for hundreds of years. One guy was a governor, and was under Karzai, and he was a fan of the U.S. He’s now in Gitmo he’s been there for a couple years, but he was turned in by a rival clan who said he was corrupt and working for the Taliban.
Because Grayson's campaign website included the entire context of the quote — albeit in small type and not in the video — he can't claim to be ignorant of the fact that Dr. Paul was talking about innocents rather than terrorists. Thus, his statement that Paul advocates “releasing the terrorists held there back into battle against our troops” is a bold-faced lie. In the latter half of the quote, Dr. Paul was specifically referring to the ground-breaking work by Seton Hall Law School Professor Mark Denbeaux, whose use of U.S. government public releases on Guantanamo detainees disproved claims by Vice President Dick Cheney the Guantanamo detainees “are people we picked up on the battlefield primarily in Afghanistan. They're terrorists.”
But Denbeaux proved — using the U.S. government's own statistics — that more than 90 percent were not picked up by U.S. or coalition forces on the battlefield. (He also has exploded the inflated myths about the numbers of those released who have “returned to the fight,” noting that the Bush administration regarded three innocent British detainees who were released as having returned to the battlefield because they subsequently granted an interview to a British documentary team.) Many detainees have indeed been proven to be innocent, such as the 17 Uighurs of China, Maher Arar, Khalid el-Masri, Omar Deghayes, the Tipton Three and others.
The real questions in the Kentucky Senate campaign are: Why is Trey Grayson lying about Dr. Rand Paul? Moreover, why is Grayson criticizing Rand Paul for suggesting that innocent people should be released from prison? What kind of human being would object to releasing innocent detainees who, our intelligence agencies concluded, are cases of mistaken identity? Does Grayson really believe innocents should be imprisoned?
The motivation behind the smear is a drive by neo-conservatives to put a stake in the heart of the Tea Party movement. According to a March 17 article on Politico.com, a Rand Paul primary victory “would represent the first true electoral success of the tea party movement. Equally important, it would embarrass Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose political organization is running Grayson’s campaign, thrust onto the national stage a Republican with foreign policy views out of the conservative mainstream and, strategists in both parties believe, imperil the GOP’s hold on the seat now held by retiring Sen. Jim Bunning.”
As a result, neocons are calling out the big guns to try to defeat Dr. Rand Paul. “Recognizing the threat, a well-connected former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney convened a conference call last week between Grayson and a group of leading national security conservatives to sound the alarm about Paul,” Politico added. That aide is former Vice President Dick Cheney's Domestic Policy Advisor Cesar Conda, founder of the lobbyist firm Navigators Global LLC and a lifelong Washington, D.C., beltway insider.
Grayson's latest atrocity against the truth is fitting a nasty new pattern in the demeanor in the campaign. While Rand Paul has taken a principled, issue-based campaign and avoided name-calling, Grayson's website focuses upon ad hominem attacks on Paul for obscure statements by a former campaign staffer and tries to paint Dr. Rand Paul as an out-of-stater. The Grayson website even touts the fact that Dr. Paul attended the prestigious — but out-of-state — Duke Medical School in a campaign bumper sticker “Defeat Duke: Vote Grayson.” (Note: Grayson's undergraduate degree is from Harvard University, in Massachusetts.)
The Grayson website emphasizes that much of Rand Paul's campaign contributions come from small out-of-state donors. But Grayson fails to mention that his campaign has been funded by $250,000 in political action committee special interest money, or that most of his fundraising has been organized by Washington, D.C. insiders.
The Grayson campaign's current key initiative seems to be that Rand Paul is not electable and would not be an effective legislator in Washington, bolstered by the following Rand Paul quote repeated on the “Rand Paul: Strange Ideas” website funded by the Grayson campaign:
I personally have made the pledge that I will not vote for any budget that’s not balanced, Republican or Democrat. Some people say, that’s impractical, you won’t be an effective legislator. I don’t want to be an effective legislator.
Politico explains a related issue: “Establishment Republicans have also begun pressing an electability message, making the case that a Paul primary win could hand the Democrats the seat in November.” But such arguments should fall on deaf ears, as neoconservatives have had their way with the Republican primaries in the last two disastrous electoral cycles for the party. Moreover, Dr. Rand Paul's moderate views on some issues — on many issues he leans libertarian — will have substantial appeal to Democrats and independents in a general election in contrast to a down-the-line, rubber-stamp GOP candidate like Grayson.
Remember that America....as we roll throught this election year. Rand is the "real deal" for Kentucky and the same goes for Rubio for Florida!
Paul will be relentlessly demonized.
That’s not the worst part.....thousands of voters will buy into it.
In other words.. I have nothing.
Nobody does, which is really the root of the problem. Do we continue to keep these guys in the lap of luxury at Gitmo, or do we do something else with them? If so, what?
It doesn’t make any sense to close Gitmo until you have an answer to that question and I don’t think there is a good answer to it.
I kind of like the ‘drop ‘em off in Afghanistan’ idea if you amend it to include steps to make sure they don’t make it out of sniper range without a lead lobotomy once they get there.
What does DeMint think of Rand Paul?
Even this spat over Guantanamo - Paul has to realize that many of the "innocent" (?!) terrorists we HAVE released have gone right back to being terrorists.
Seems to be the trend around FR lately. Kneejerk reactions over insinuations, words taken out of context and flat out falsehoods that escalate to vicious attacks with conservatives eating their own. Case in point, the Hannity/Freedom Alliance issue yesterday. Before that it was Medina (don't get me started...).
I don’t doubt for a minute that the establishment GOP is trying to knock off Rand Paul. Sometimes I wonder where’s the difference between the Dummycraps and the GOP except that the Dims seem to have more balls. We quit supporting any umbrella GOP organization when they supported Specter instead of a REAL conservative. We only support individual Conservatives.
This is how the republican party has dwindled to accept moderates and label them as conservatives.
Hence the coined phrase, “Rino”.
Besides, I just have to use this as an opportunity to lend validity to Perot's opposition to NAFTA many years ago.
Perot was dead on the money.......sadly it took this many years to prove out the “Huge sucking sound of jobs leaving this country” theory.
Hold all combatants taken on the field until the end of hostilities. No end of hostilities? No release.
Maybe put em all on an out-of-theatre island somewhere, monitored by military professionals, interrogated for intel as needed . . .
Oh, that’s right. That’s what GITMO IS FOR!
Paul has a lot right on most issues. He’s OK by me
By innocent, he means that they never committed any hostile acts against the US.
You know how most of those guys ended up at Gitmo? Here's an example... sometime before the US invasion, Achmed had sex with Mohammed's favorite goat. When the first US soldier arrived in his village, Mohammed pointed to Achmed & cried "Taliban!".
Now here it is, 9 years later and Achmed is still in prison for having sex with the wrong goat. Do you think that's right?
As far as going back to being terrorists, most (all?) of those people in Gitmo were never terrorists, they were just participating in Afghanistan's traditional sport of tribal warfare when they were "fingered" as taliban by someone who had a grudge against them.
If I were imprisoned (Gitmo'd) for that long, for something I didn't do, and was able to find the person responsible (any American will do), you might call what I'd do to them a crime (terrorism), but I'd call it justified retaliation.
Or you could be like my man Ron Paul and call it "blowback" - i.e., sometimes when you do evil $hit to evil people who never did anything evil to you, you motivate them to point their evil in your direction.
*shakes head*
If I were imprisoned (Gitmo'd) for that long, for something I didn't do, and was able to find the person responsible (any American will do), you might call what I'd do to them a crime (terrorism), but I'd call it justified retaliation.
And this is what I'm talking about. You think the Gitmo detainees are innocent and you empathize with the terrorists.
This is why I worry about Rand Paul's candidacy. He tries to present a respectable front, but is he really a loony tune, and if so when will it come out?
I agree.
The GOP is hurting it’s stupid Rino self again here. Rand is a constitution supporting patriot. He is conservative in his view of life and lifestyle. When I have heard him speak- I hear an American-American.
The Rino on the other hand, will be another back stabbing Rino - guarenteed! We should take the change on Rand. We want change. We have to risk the discomfort of change.
Innocent of committing inhuman, barbaric acts? No. Innocent of crimes against the US? Yes.
Empathize with them? No, I empathize with me and the rest of America, paying for an endless war that has nothing to do with national security - in fact, a war that's making us less safe and less secure.
This is why I worry about Rand Paul's candidacy. He tries to present a respectable front, but is he really a loony tune, and if so when will it come out?
I think he's a good bit left (in the direction of the neocons) of where I'd want him to be, and well to the right of where you seem to want him.
You say he tries to present a respectable front, implying he's being dishonest as to who he is? I think what he's doing is moderating his tone and slightly adjusting his policy positions in response to feedback he's getting on the campaign trail - i.e. learning how to better represent the people of Kentucky while still holding true to his core beliefs.
Lastly, a little friendly advice, to you and all the other critics of libertarianism here at FR... if you think everybody that disagrees with you is looney toon, you are incapable of learning and are wasting your time on this forum.
Don't get us started by pretending that we don't have the transcripts and the audio of her truther statements.
This thread attracted the fringe guys trying to piggy back onto it, by attempting to mix Rand Paul, who appears to be legitimate, in with their favorite nut cases.
We even have the guy that thinks that the pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-Clinton, nut case, conspiracy wedding Perot was a good candidate.
And we have the Ron Paul traitor that blames America, and defends Islam's war against the world and justifies the murder of Americans.
I think 9/11 Truthers are nuts, for example. Maybe harmless, maybe not - but certainly nuts in that regard. (What do you suggest I could learn from them??) Debra Medina's candidacy was brought to a halt when she expressed sympathy to Trutherism, and Ron Paul has long had ties with anti-Semitic and other nutty organization of various objectionable stripes. Does Rand Paul have similar poisonous connections in his present or past?
I think he's a good bit left (in the direction of the neocons) of where I'd want him to be, and well to the right of where you seem to want him.
Regarding anti-war beliefs, I don't think they are necessarily loony (though they can be), but I certainly disagree that being anti-war makes a candidate further 'right'. Obviously the left-right spectrum is simplistic. I think that conservatism embraces the best aspects of libertariansim, but that Libertarians - and people are, I think, rightly suspicious that Rand P. is a big 'L' Libertarian - embrace a great deal of what is not conservative.
Wow...isn't that the same exact statement Glenn made back in September of 2009? Sure is. There are 4 videos there, edited and unedited, you might want to pay close attention to the one on the bottom, here is a direct link:
Glenn Beck the connection to the Texas Gubernatorial Race
I also agree with the premise that there are still questions...certainly not MIHOP or LIHOP questions...but there clearly was an orchestrated effort on the part of certain entities in the Government to lie and obstruct the investigation to cover up their own incompetence as has been publicly admitted by the 911 investigators, but that does not make me a "truther" by any stretch of the imagination. The 9/11 Commissioners even went as far as to say they considered criminal charges.
As for the police officer remarks, she started by saying "I have seen some information" and then qualified it with "it was 8 or 9 years ago, so I can't be sure" (unedited video here, second one down on the page you all keep using the edited video above that). She was talking about questions others had that were brought up 8 or 9 years ago that she had "seen", she never said she believed no officers died as you all implied. That is clear from the video.
Beck has found that with his following, he has the power to make or break careers. Ruining careers is fine when you are attacking self-avowed communists in the White House, but eating your own over minor issues (and nothing to do with the governing of Texas which is what she was working towards) and skewing their words to suit your own personal agenda is a whole other matter.
As for Perot, Ron Paul and even Buchanan, I have no use for them myself, but I will agree with the other poster that they have been viciously attacked in the same manner.
Sorry we all went through all this, she is a truther, just go back to the weeks of everyone attempting to peel off your blinders, we don’t need to keep dealing with your self deceit, the matter is settled and she is gone.
Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be enough to keep you from trying to queer up Rand Paul threads with her.
What is it about the name Paul that attracts you guys.
Ron Paul is a nutcase, I already made that clear...just as clear as I was about Medina not being a truther. You are the one with blinders on and apparently ear plugs as well. Your dismissal of the facts I presented and attempts to marginalize me instead of discussing the issue says alot about you.
Every gitmo prisoner should be summarily executed.
It’s pure propaganda to suggest that any of them are not terrorists.
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