A Perfect Libertarian Moment

Maureen Dowd segues from a brief riff on the misogyny of Kentucky's Republican senatorial nominee Rand Paul to an appreciation of Rolling Stones rock star Keith Richards, whom Dowd describes as "a consummate gentleman."

The Constant Weader stuck with Paul:

Let's talk about that other consummate gentleman -- Rand Paul -- with whom you began. It was one of Rand Paul's county campaign coordinators -- a man named Tim Profitt -- who stomped the head of a woman wearing glasses whom his colleagues had wrestled to the pavement.

One of those colleagues has tentatively been identified as also being associated with Paul's campaign.

Rand Paul himself knew Tim Profitt. The Huffington Post posted a picture of the two men arm-in-arm.

Paul boasted, in a full-page Lexington Herald-Leader ad that Profitt was among a group of people who had endorsed him.

The victim, Lauren Valle, said this to reporters: "The Rand Paul campaign knows me and they have expressed their distaste for my work before. They surrounded me. There were about five of them, they started motioning to each other, and they got behind me." Valle says her partner heard the men say, "We're here to do crowd control and we might have to take someone out."

Now, let's look at what candidate Paul had to say to Fox "News": "… And there was a bit of a crowd control problem." Paul didn’t condemn the violence. He didn't offer an apology to the victim. He didn't acknowledge that the man who stomped Valle’s head was one of his campaign coordinators. But he did volunteer that bit about crowd control.

 As a libertarian, Paul believes people should not just fend for themselves. They should also organize themselves socially to take care of problems. Instead of bringing federal money to Kentucky to help fund clinics to deal with serious drug problems, Paul has said local churches should counsel drug abusers. That’s a philosophy that well might spill over into "crowd control." Instead of depending on paid law enforcement, a campaign could "work together" to deal with "undesirables" – like MoveOn’s Lauren Valle.

I suspect that if some intrepid, fast-moving Kentucky reporters put their minds to it, they could uncover evidence -- before November 2 -- that Rand Paul or his campaign "deputized" Tim Profitt & perhaps others to handle "crowd control." This meant, to some in the Paul campaign, that they would muscle out MoveOn volunteers and other "liberal" demonstrators.

The evidence so far is that Tim Profitt did not act on his own. Sure, after Paul's disastrous interview, the campaign reversed course & disowned Profitt. But I'd guess Profitt is just a sacrificial bigfoot. I suspect Profitt did what he thought he was told to do, and he got carried away doing it. In the heat of the moment, that kind of thing will happen, especially when the deputies are overly-enthusiastic amateurs.

The stomping of Lauren Valle's head was a perfect libertarian moment. It was a perfect tea party moment. It is what you get when you "get the government off your back." You get vigilantism. And that is what the perfect gentleman Rand Paul proposes to promote if he goes to Washington.

The Commentariat -- October 26

We've got to get the government out of government. -- A U.S. Senator in a "Rocky & Bullwinkle" segment, ca. 1962

Ian Urbina of the New York Times: "Tea Party members have started challenging voter registration applications and have announced plans to question any individual voters at the polls whom they suspect of being ineligible. In response, liberal groups and voting rights advocates are sounding the alarm, claiming that such strategies are scare tactics intended to suppress minority and poor voters." ...

... There Is Something in that Tea They're Drinking. Colorado Republican Senate nominee Ken Buck "disagree[s] strongly with the concept of separation of church and state." He also thinks it horrible that President Obama calls the White House holiday tree a "holiday tree":

Robert Reich on why Democrats move to the center after a loss & Republicans don't. "Democrats think in terms of programs, policies, and particular pieces of legislation.... Republicans think in terms of simple ideas, themes, and movements.... Republicans are also more disciplined (ask yourself which party attracts authoritarian personalities and which attracts anti-authoritarians).... Republicans are cynical about politics.... Democrats are idealistic about politics.... Message to Obama: Whatever happens November 2, don’t move to the center."

Peter Baker of the New York Times follows Bill Clinton on the campaign trail: "Where Mr. Obama was the popular fresh figure in the party vanquishing the Clinton dynasty in 2008, today Mr. Clinton is the most popular politician on the campaign circuit coming to the rescue of an embattled president. Gone is the bitter party elder flummoxed at the success of an inexperienced upstart; back is the happy warrior rousing crowds once again, fighting again a battle he once lost and at the same time polishing his own legacy."

Jay Heflin of The Hill: "Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) Neil Barofsky on Monday released a sobering account on how the program helped save Wall Street but has done little for Main Street." A pdf of Barofsky's report is here. ...

... OR, as Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge puts it, "SIGTARP calls out Tim Geithner on various violations including data manipulation, lack of transparency, 'cruel' cynicism, and gross incompetence." Durden cites a few significant passages of Barofsky's report. You don't need to be a genius to understand what Barofsky means.

Sam Hananel of the AP: "Less than halfway through his first term, President Barack Obama has appointed more openly gay officials than any other president in history. Gay activists say the estimate of more than 150 appointments so far -- from agency heads and commission members to policy officials and senior staffers -- surpasses the previous high of about 140 reached during two full terms under President Bill Clinton."

I Am So Much Better than the Rest of You Schmucks. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: on Monday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who successfully campaigned to get the City Council to change the term-limits law to allow him to serve three terms, "said he would vote to restore a limit of two terms, down from three, and to ban the City Council from rewriting the rule for sitting elected officials.... The results of the ballot initiative would not affect Mr. Bloomberg, but would affect his successors. During a news conference, the mayor said that the term-limits initiative, which will appear on the back of the paper ballots on Nov. 2, was imperfect and badly designed, but that he would support it anyway."

Miriam Jordan of the Wall Street Journal: "Arizona has attracted more than $3.6 million of donations to help defend its law to crack down on illegal immigration, with one whopping contribution—and thousands of smaller ones—from out of state. Timothy Mellon, an heir to a Pittsburgh steel and banking dynasty, has donated $1.5 million to a legal-defense fund established by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer...."

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post seems pretty skeptical about every aspect of Jon Stewart's upcoming "Rally to Restore Sanity," including the host. ...

... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "... a group of younger, web-savvy feds are planning to march on Saturday in defense of their coworkers on the sidelines of Jon Stewart's 'Rally to Restore Sanity.' Organizers of the 'Government Doesn't Suck March' ... were inspired in part by last week's Washington Post poll that revealed widespread negative perceptions of federal workers."

In Iraq, Torture Con'd. AP: "Field reports from the Iraq war published by WikiLeaks show that, despite Obama's public commitment to eschew torture, U.S. forces turned detainees over to Iraqi forces even after signs of abuse. Documents also show that U.S. interrogators continued to question Iraqi detainees, some of whom were still recovering from injuries or whose wounds were still visible after being held by Iraqi security forces. 'We have not turned a blind eye,' U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday, noting that one of the reasons why U.S. troops were still in Iraq was to carry out human rights training with Iraqi security forces." ...

... Larry King talks to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange:

Harry Reid intends to steal this election if he can't win it outright. -- Cleta Mitchell, attorney for Sharron Angle

... Las Vegas Sun: "A national advocacy organization for immigrants is launching a Spanish-language media blitz in Nevada today in an attempt to use a recent stream of anti-illegal immigration ads from Sharron Angle’s campaign as a reason for Hispanics to vote.... The sixty-second spots – 154 of them – will air on Spanish-language radio from now until Election Day...." ...

... Sharron Angle's latest fearmongering, racist ad:

Shailagh Murray of the Washington Post: "Gritty and stoic, [Majority Leader Harry] Reid embodies Nevada's paradoxical relationship with the federal government, a can't-live-with-him, can't-live without-him dilemma that has turned his quest for a fifth Senate term into the fight of his long career. Win or lose, most of Reid's elections have been decided by whisker-thin margins and his battle against tea party star Sharron Angle figures to be another. But the dynamics of this one are different. Never before has Nevada been so tired of Reid - and yet so dependent on him."

Ben Stein, who is an obnoxious, first-class jerk, writes a commentary in the Atlanta Dispatch saying Republican Senatorial nominee Joe Miller is a bigger one. Stein, a Yale Law grad (or so he says), doesn't believe Miller is really a fellow alum. Stein supports M-U-R-K-O-W-S-K-I.

Jon Stewart's news team covers "NPR Staffing Decision 2010":

Larry King interviews Lillian McEwen, a former girlfriend of Clarence Thomas:

Tom Cohen of CNN: "Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was a binge drinker who had a pornography habit or fetish in the 1980s, then changed radically when he stopped drinking alcohol, his former girlfriend told CNN on Monday."

Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post writes about the attempts of the Army Stryker unit to defend one of the alleged murders-for-sport of Afghans. "The attempts ... are detailed in previously undisclosed audio recordings made by a photojournalist embedded with the unit.... For a full, unedited audio of the Stryker Brigade's trip, click on the links: http://cdn.washingtonpost.com/media/podcast/audio/fullstrykeraudio1.mp3; and http://cdn.washingtonpost.com/media/podcast/audio/fullstrykeraudio2.mp3; and http://cdn.washingtonpost.com/media/podcast/audio/fullstrykeraudio3.mp3. The recordings also raise questions about why Army commanders did not take those suspicions seriously and failed to notice broader signs of trouble in the platoon until a member of the unit, under investigation for hashish use, tipped off military police."

From the Creepy News Department: Damien Cave of the New York Times: "Floridians frequently become famous either for heinous crimes or odd achievements.... Rarely, however, do the two intersect,... Jennifer Mee ... was the 'hiccup girl' of 2007 — the teenager from Tampa whose nonstop hiccups, up to 50 times a minute for six weeks, caught the attention of the nation. Now she is back in the spotlight, facing murder charges. The police in St. Petersburg say Ms. Mee, 19, lured Shannon Griffin, 22, to a home there on Saturday, where two male accomplices ... tried to rob him. When Mr. Griffin resisted, he was shot four times and killed, the police said."

The Commentariat -- October 25

It's the Economy, Stupid. Rick Hertzberg, of course, puts James Carville's dictum more elegantly: "President Obama and the Democrats kept the Great Recession from becoming a second Great Depression. But the presence of pain is more keenly felt than the absence of agony." ...

... HOWEVER, in case you've forgot the serious economic blunders the President made, Paul Krugman gently reminds you: "The real story of this election, then, is that of an economic policy that failed to deliver. Why? Because it was greatly inadequate to the task." ...

... AND when you see what the President has planned -- deficit reduction & foreign trade deals -- you won't feel any better. Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: "After two years of operating at loggerheads with Republicans, Mr. Obama and his aides are planning a post-election agenda for a very different political climate." ...

... AND More Evidence of Stupid. Ben Feller of the AP: "Preparing for political life after a bruising election, President Barack Obama will put greater emphasis on fiscal discipline, a nod to a nation sick of spending and to a Congress poised to become more Republican, conservative and determined to stop him."

... BUT Finally Noticing the Price of Tea in China. Mark Landler & Sewell Chan of the New York Times: "The Obama administration, facing a vexed relationship with China on exchange rates, trade, and security issues, is stiffening its approach toward Beijing, seeking allies to confront a newly assertive power that officials now say has little intention of working with the United States.

"Disturbed and Ticked Off." Andy Barr of Politico: "Speaking at a rally for 28-term incumbent Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) Sunday, [President Bill] Clinton said argued 'right-wing rhetoric' against government spending does not accurately frame how Democrats have tried to aid a country still reeling from a recession, and showed frustration that the attacks against Democrats seems to have stuck":

I almost gag when I hear these Republicans lambasting the president and the Democrats in Congress, 'Oh, they're such big spenders, they're just crazy, they're quasi-socialist. I have a simple question: Who's the last president to give you a balanced budget? I like all this enthusiasm, but frankly there are a few things about this election that have gotten me somewhere between disturbed and ticked off."
-- President Bill Clinton

T. W. Farnam of the Washington Post: "Companies that received federal bailout money, including some that still owe money to the government, are giving to political candidates with vigor. Among companies with PACs, the 23 that received $1 billion or more in federal money through the Troubled Assets Relief Program gave a total of $1.4 million to candidates in September, up from $466,000 the month before. Most of those donations are going to Republican candidates, although the TARP program was approved primarily with Democratic support. President Obama expanded it to cover GM and other automakers." ...

... Ken Vogel of Politico: the Karl Rove-Ed Gillespie group American Crossroads initially promised to reveal their donors & be completely "transparent," but they did a 180 when they discovered it was way easier to milk secret donors. Their flip-flop resulted in a huge increase in donations. "Late last month, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) sent a letter to the IRS requesting an investigation into Crossroads GPS and two other big-spending GOP-allied non-profits with links to GPS, American Action Network and Americans for Job Security." ...

... BUT RNC Chair Michael Steele is "absolutely all for transparency." Of course one of the reasons Rove-Gillespie are in the money-hiding business is because so many Republican donors wanted nothing to do with Transparent Mike.

Profs. Barry Burden & Kenneth Mayer in a New York Times op-ed: early voting depresses turnout by several percentage points.... when early voting is combined with same-day registration — that is, you can register to vote and cast an early ballot on the same day — the depressive effect of early voting disappears."

"Radio Theater." Jesse Walker of Reason on Republican threats to defund National Public Radio over the Juan Williams incident: "These standoffs never end with public broadcasting getting defunded." (italics Walker's) ...

... ** AND Jim Fallows of The Atlantic on why NPR matters & why it is not the "liberal" antidote to Fox "News."

Glenn Greenwald whacks New York Times reporter John Burns & others in the media for their hit jobs on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: "The Iraq War is John Burns' war, and for the crime of making that war look bad, Julian Assange must have his character smeared and his psychiatric health maligned.... It's not hard to see why The New York Times, CNN and so many other establishment media outlets are eager to do that. Serving the Government's interests, siding with government and military officials, and attacking government critics is what they do.... That's what makes them the 'establishment media.'"

CW: I don't think I've ever linked to a letter to the editor, so this is a first. Former Rep. Richard Ottinger (D-NY) rebuts David Brooks' stupid assertion that money isn't an important factor in the electoral process. Needless to say, Brooks' column was not one I linked, so here it is, if you want to read stupidspeak.

He can take his endorsement and really shove it as far as I'm concerned. -- Frank Caprio on President Obama. Caprio is Rhode Island's Democratic gubernatorial nominee, but he is running against Obama supporter & former Republican, now Independent, Lincoln Chafee, & the President -- who is in Rhode Island today -- has declined to endorse. You can listen to the audio here.

     ... Pool Report: The White House sort of responds to Caprio's tasteful remark.

Edward Mason of the Boston Herald: Sean Bielat, Barney Frank's Republican opponent, says that gays are just like short people -- neither has a right to serve in the military. Mason observes, "Hmm. ... On the other hand, vertically challenged people are not forced to pretend they’re tall, then drummed out once it’s discovered they’re short in spite of their service record." ...

... CW: you know I couldn't help this:

I don't watch the news. -- Christine O'Donnell

God is the reason I am running. -- Christine O'Donnell

David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network interviews Delaware's Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell. The transcript is here. Here's a nauseating clip:

CBS News: "Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller admitted on Sunday that he had been cited for an ethics violation in 2008, just a day after an Alaska judge ordered for the release of personnel records surrounding the incident.... Former Fairbanks North Star Borough mayor Jim Whitaker said earlier this month that Miller was nearly fired from the [Fairbanks North Star] Bureau -- where he worked as a part-time lawyer -- for using the computers in an attempt to oust Randy Ruedrich, head of the Alaska Republican Party, from his position." Miller has previously, & repeatedly, refused to answer questions about his "background."

Peter Wallsten of the Wall Street Journal: potential Republican candidates for President try to position themselves in relation to the tea party movement.