Posted on 11/20/2007 12:10:24 PM PST by Captain Kirk
To the Editor
I read Mona Charen’s column on Friday and I had to clear a few things up. Outside of the name-calling (“kook,” as I’m sure you remember, was the attack word of choice used by critics of Barry Goldwater), Charen was way off base.
1. Dr. Paul’s commitment to principle is second to none, so to attack him, Charen twists the understanding of what a presidential pardon really is. A pardon is a constitutional check by the executive branch on the judiciary to protect against cruel or unusual punishment. When considering a pardon, a president examines extenuating circumstances to decide whether a punishment for a conviction under the law was unjust. Scooter Libby was convicted of a crime; that is not the issue here. Dr. Paul is not sympathetic to issuing him a pardon because he finds Libby an unsympathetic character. There is nothing inconsistent here. President Bush, who has issued the fewest pardons of any president since World War II, hasn’t pardoned Libby either, by the way.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
waaahh
Read Jesse Benton’s response, but I missed the article that Charen wrote to set of the controversy. Do you have that link?
The Mona Claren article. Will peruse the article you sent. Thanks.
boo hoo.
Thanks.
Uh huh. And is the current favorite of critics of Dennis Kookcinich.
What's your point?
Note to self: Don't vote for Anthony Napoitano or John Gibson if they ever run for President.
Still ranting off the top of your head I see....you may want to look at this latest from Jonah Goldberg. You do remember who Jonah Goldberg is don't you? While not an endorsement of Dr. Paul, even Jonah refutes Ms. Charen's hit piece. Let's get a quote from Jonah shall we?
For the most part, these allegations strike me as overblown and unfair. But, for argument's sake, let's say they're not. Let's even say that Paul has the passionate support of the Legion of Doom, that his campaign lunchroom looks like the "Star Wars" cantina, and that many of his top advisors actually have hooves. Well, I would still find him less scary than Mike Huckabee.Did you get that? Even if the rantings of Ms. Charon were true (which they're not), Goldberg would see Dr. Paul as a better person than Huckabee. That's just sad. Perhaps even the faux conservatives at National Review are seeing the light....
Deserves repeating
Libertarians and Ron Paul
20 Nov 2007 03:19 pm
David Bernstein got the blogosphere roiling with this post:
<I>Ron Paul is a tempting protest vote, and I did support him in 1988 when he ran as a Libertarian, but he strikes me as running less of a "libertarian" campaign than a pacifist, populist campaign that does have some appeal to young and idealistic libertarians, but has too much appeal to the old, paranoid, and racist pseudo-conservatives. There seems to be a right-wing version of the Popular Front mentality among many Paul supporters: just like it was okay for Social Democrats to ally with Stalinists for "Progressive" ends in the old days, it's okay to ally with 9/11 and various other conspiracy theorists, southern secessionists, Nazis and fascists, anti-Semites and racists, against the common enemy of the modern "welfare-warfare" state. Count me out!</i>
The guilt-by-association thing seems unfair to me. Matt Barganier agrees. Ditto the Rockwell brigade. But this post might prove Bernstein's point:
<I>Note that southern secessionists are lumped in with the rest of the laundry list. So support of a political tactic of disunion and decentralization has also become a thought crime?</i>
One libertarian has Bernstein's back, but David can defend himself:
<I>Paul certainly has the potential to be the best thing that has happened to libertarianism as a political movement in a long time. He also has the potential to be the worst thing, if, as he gets more public exposure libertarianism gets associated in the public mind with 9/11 truther, southern irredentists, "white nationalists," and so forth.</i>
It would be pretty easy for Paul to distance himself from some of the kooks who will always gravitate to a non-interventionist, small government candidacy. I don't know why he hasn't. But I also think that the Iraq war and the massive spending and anti-federalist impulses of the current GOP make Paul's candidacy important - as a corrective to abuse and a reminder of some core conservative principles.
WHile I do not doubt Dr. Paul’s commitment to “principle,” and I actually support many of the principles he espouses — right to life, free market economy, constitutional government, etc. — when it comes to foreign policy, he has his head in the sand just as deep as Hillary, and pretty close to as much as Obama.
Paul does not recognize the inherent dangers of the virulent form of Islamofascism loose in the world today — much as those who failed to see any danger from the Nazi’s just before WW II.
Isolationism is NOT a foreign policy, and disregarding the vitriol of our enemies who call for our destruction is not “Constitutional.” On that point alone, Paul forfeits any credibility or claim to be qualified to serve as POTUS.
They said the Wright Brothers were “kooks” too, that heavier-than-air flight was “nutty” - sometimes new ideas must put up with the insults from the peanut gallery.
Following the Constitution .... what a nutty idea!!
Goodness. Did I detect a note of sarcasm in your post? Oh me, oh my. How hurtful.
Mona Charen is a typical neocon snake. If you removed unfounded insinuations of Nazism and anti-Semitism from neocon commentary, there would be very little left. The notion that Ron Paul, one of four congressmen to endorse Reagan over Ford in 1976 and a long-time opponent of big government, is in some sense sympathetic to Nazis is a smear, pure and simple, and neocon kookery of the highest order.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.