[Buckeye McFrog]

So Paul has an aide who once earned his living with a corny schtick on radio. At least he’s not wandering the halls of Congress stealing random items, like some people’s aides.

[Servant of the Cross]

“Negatively of Lincoln” is a curious understatement, given that Hunter — who admits to giving a “personal toast” to Booth on his birthday — once suggested Lincoln would have had an amorous relationship with Adolf Hitler.

Hmmm. I wonder what FReeper handle Jack Hunter posts under. This is straight out of some CW threads here.

[onedoug]

I don’t think of Lincoln and Hitler in the same context. That said....

[who_would_fardels_bear]

What is so horrible about paleolibertarianism? What exactly is palelibertarianism? Goldberg doesn't actually say. Is it racist? Or is it just called racist by hysterical opponents?

I would imagine that all of the libertarians on FR are right-leaning libertarians rather than left-leaning ones. How far to the right do you have to lean in order to become a paleolibertarian?

Evidently the neocons that have gobbled up NR are afraid of anything except their own worthless and dangerous ideology.

[sportutegrl]

The Hunters and Deens will get tarred and feathered for comments made 20 years ago. But, the Spitzers, Weiners, and Filners of this world can commit much more egregious acts and all is forgiven.

[cdcdawg]

“Thinkers such as Murray Rothbard hated the cultural liberalism of libertarians like the Koch brothers (yes, you read that right) and sought to build a movement fueled by white resentment.”

That’s a pretty bold statement that Jonah offers without any support. Murray Rothbard did seem to despise the social liberalism of people like the Koch brothers, but it’s another thing to portray that as proof he sought to build a movement “fueled by white resentment”.

[Dr. Sivana]

Okay, so a piece on how interesting Rand Paul is winds up spending 90% of its space on his father Ron Paul, and a shared associate who was a radio shock jock 20 years ago.

Well, Joe Sobran was a prominent writer for National Review, and some people found that Sobran crossed the line into anti-semitism.

Good grief.

Rand Paul should be judged primarily on what HE has demonstrated. While he is a little libertarian for my taste, he “sell-out” rating is very low (comapared with say, Marco Rubio), and I think his priorites would be to bring sanity and principle back to taxes, spending and states’ rights. His court picks should be as sound as you can get (Roberts and Kennedy have shown you can never be sure. I think the biggest counterindicator of fidelity to the Constitution is wanting to be respected and liked by peers. Scalia and Alito don’t seem to care about that stuff. Thomas certainly doesn’t.)

[Irenic]

" in a climate where politicians like Mitt Romney and John McCain can be demonized as bigots, should Rand Paul ever be nominated, one can only imagine what his opponents, in and out of the media, would do. "

The media will demonize anybody with R behind their name. Perhaps Paul should have hired a good socialist, maybe the media would love him then?

[PghBaldy]

I would think National Review would love Rand as he wants the open borders to continue.

[GBA]

It's good to get things like this out in the open now where they can be discussed and countered, if necessary, well before the election.

There isn't much of a field to choose from, at least not to me, and Rand Paul is one of the few currently worthy of consideration.

[SharpRightTurn]

“having the South re-secede”

I’m on-board. This doesn’t trouble me at all.

What I don’t like about Rand Paul is his willingness to go along with amnesty under the right conditions. I also would also want to know that he doesn’t want to import masses more of mohammedans into our country as Bush did and as Hussein is now doing.

[SamuraiScot]

The newsletters, probably ghostwritten by Rothbard and former Ron Paul chief of staff Lew Rockwell, were the main organ for this effort.

I read the newsletters at the time. The early ones were quite interesting and accurate. Later, a little hysterical, but I should take another look at them, in view of what's happened since. I disagree with Rockwell frequently, and Ron Paul whenever he talks about foreign policy. But Jonah is not worthy to carry the slippers of any of them.

[ilgipper]

in a climate where politicians like Mitt Romney and John McCain can be demonized as bigots, should Rand Paul ever be nominated, one can only imagine what his opponents, in and out of the media, would do.

Well, there's the rub. From the perspective of too many, they say 'even McCain and Romney got pinned as extreme right wingers so we can't run someone who actually is conservative'. The opposite it true. We should nominate our most effective principled conservatives because a) No matter who we nominate, they'll get attacked 24/7 as extreme, and b) a good conservative with communication skills can take down that narrative.

Romney made a wrong-headed meandering statement about the 47% that the media and democrats rode all the way to November. He got the whole thing wrong. Although his initial premise was right, he could not articulate why correctly, even after being hit with the charge. Yes, it makes no sense to target a campaign to win voters on the other side. He mangled the rest, and his response after the fact was meant to neutralize and not advance his campaign message. A Ronald Reagan would have turned that into pure gold.

[TBP]

The neocons literally hate paleocons and wish to destroy them. they can tolerate liberal progs, but not paleos.

[Sam Gamgee]

Gee, maybe I find people like Hunter refreshing for not being Lincoln worshipers. The knee jerk worship of Lincoln from some on the right is mind blowing.