The attacks on Ron Paul by these “serious” establishment Democrats (see: Kevin Drum — the same “serious” thinker who thought the Iraq war sounded like a great idea) are getting increasingly tiresome. The current meme seems to be that a President Paul would usher in some sort of Hobbesian hell, wherein your grandmother would apparently be turned out on the street, forced to turn tricks in order to pay for her blood-pressure medication.

Paul has said — repeatedly — that if elected he would not seek to cut social programs, but would instead cut the obscenely bloated military budget. (Self-promotion disclaimer): I asked Paul earlier this year about his relationship with Dennis Kucinich (who, for what it’s worth, calls Paul “a great American who more often than not is right”) and his response pretty much dispels this myth:

We’re close friends, and we certainly agree [on the war]. And I think we may end up voting closely all the time on the war issue. Sometimes some of these funding bills are a little bit complex, and even Walter Jones and I will disagree even though we agree on what we’re supposed to be doing, but the interpretation will be a little bit different. But I think Dennis and I usually come down on the same side of it. That is, if you don’t want the war you quit the funding, and that’s our responsibility and it’s not the president’s authority to do what he wants because we have the purse strings, so you have to vote against the spending. So we get along very well on that, and since it’s such a major issue I think I will continue to work with him the best we can. And you know, take some of the liberal welfare spending that Dennis might support more than I. But you know, I’m not hostile toward that. If I can save the money from overseas, put some of it against the deficit, end up with a net reduction in the size of the budget, at the same time stopping a war, I may well be very open to funding some of these programs. Because I’m not out to gut some of these programs that have taught people to be very dependant on the government, like medical care. I mean, that’s not my goal. I’ve never run for office with the goal of slashing [those programs] even though philosophically I don’t think it’s the best way to deliver services and prosperity to poor people.

And finally — trying to tie Ron Paul to David Duke as Neiwart does is the same tired, ad hominem b.s. used by the pro-war Malkin brigades. Every candidate running has unsavory supporters, and I don’t think Ron Paul raised $4.3 million the other day because of the support of a few inbred racists. Obama invited a vehemently anti-gay (and self-professed “cured” homosexual) gospel singer to campaign for him — no one, not even the bigots/idiots at Hot Air would claim Paul has done anything like that. If we’re going to apply these sleazy guilt-by-association smears evenly, then I guess the entire antiwar movement is now discredited. After all, David Duke happens to have a “Support our troops… bring ’em home” banner on his site.

On the most important issues of the day, which a president would actually have the power to do something about — ending the war on drugs, dismantling the American empire, ending the use of secret prisons and torture — a Paul administration would be much more progressive than any candidate but Kucinich.

Posted by: Charlie at November 8, 2007 08:53 PM