Kentucky Liberal Blogger All But Calls Rand Paul "Radical, Racist, Anti-Semite"

Liberals were blogging earlier and much more heavily than conservatives until recently.  The seedy history of early liberal blogs is a stain on the reputation of this medium, and a hard one to live down, at least for those of us who are serious about the responsible use of the new media to further the public debate.

Take for example the liberal blog "Barefoot and Progressive".  The publisher routinely uses rule number 5 from Saul Alinsky's "Rules For Radicals".  He makes use of ridicule in his posts, but this time he has taken his criticism of Rand Paul to a new level.  Now he has suggested that the Paul campaign is plagued by some John Birch like, KKK like rhetoric being used by supporters around in cyberspace.

In his post "Paulbots Fear The Jews" the author links to several posts wherein one can find disturbing language which trends toward antisemitism. Most of it is anti- Ron Paul stuff, but the suggestion is of course that Rand Paul shares the views of those who comment on blogs, or those who write certain blogs just because they also support his father, or maybe even support him.

This kind of Non Sequitur is dangerous in a political campaign because so many people are dissuaded easily by such linkage between racism, antisemitism and candidates they are just getting to know.

ADVICE TO THE PAUL CAMPAIGN: Deal with this before it becomes a real issue, not just the fantasy of some liberal blogger.

ADVICE TO THE GRAYSON CAMPAIGN:  Steer clear of this guy's attempt to bait you into becoming a vile pawn in his war against republicans.

Comments

[Jack]

Its all just lies and smear.
Its a lot of baseless accusations and fearmongering.

It is absurd nonsense and collectivism to say that
Rand Paul should be held accountable for the attitudes
of every single supporter.
If every person running for office wasted his whole time distancing himself from
every single nut job who claimed to be a supporter (who may have even been paid to claim affiliation by an opponent)
The person would waste a lot of their campaign time.

The people who cry the most about him 'not doing enough to distance himself' from every single comment that comes along
are usually insincere and would likely not vote for him anyway.

They are throwing the mud (false accusations of racism) at Rand
because they have nothing else. They cant debate him, so they try to slap on a label. They try to throw some slime at him and hope
that they can frighten enough people away from him.
Its despicable. Its a dirty trick.
The people of Kentucky are too smart to fall for that old trick.

The people who are making the biggest deal of it are all too quiet about the possibility of their own candidates possibly getting money from racists!!!
What hypocrites!!! Do you honestly think they would even bother to investigate that possibility? I dont.

[Lisa Graas]

I don't believe Rand Paul is a racist. However, it is clear that his philosophy attracts racists, and there is a reason for that. Is Rand Paul's philosophy racist in and of itself? I'm not prepared to go that far, however his philosophy does attract them. I can explain why, but it is a very lengthy explanation. This problem will continue to plague him unless he makes a stand against it. The fact that he does not make a stand against it is offensive to many people on the left and the right, including myself. The fact that he hired a racist offends me to my core. I interviewed that man before I started blogging on Rand Paul and was offended by the things he said to me. This is a problem that I cannot tolerate in my Senator and no amount of coaxing and cajoling will make me be less offended. Rand Paul will not stand against REAL racism. The fact that he is so accepting of it in his midst is something I can't fathom. Do I think he is an evil man? Absolutely not. I think he is a good man. But at the same time, he does not seem to have the spine to call out evil in his midst. I believe this shows that Rand Paul is willing to sleep with the devil, so to speak, to gain power. Evil? Nope. Just spineless. Apologies if this offends anyone but I'm just being honest about what offends me to the core of my being.

[OWB]

Calling Rand Paul a "radical, racist, anti-Semite" is obviously a smear. Smear tactics like this have been used by Communists a lot. According to researcher G. Edward Griffin, the American Communist Party put forth this following directive in 1943:"When certain obstructionists become too irritating, label them, after suitable build-ups, as fascist or Nazi or anti-Semitic, and use the prestige of anti-fascist and tolerance organizations to discredit them. In the public mind constantly associate those who oppose us with those names which already have a bad smell... The association will, after enough repetition, become fact in the public mind". This explains why Rand Paul's detractors keep repeating the same lies. So far, this particular US Senate campaign has been all Grayson attack followed by Paul counter, with the cycle repeating itself. Rand so far has been able to effectively counter Grayson's attacks. Once again, it should be noted that Rand's opponents, whoever they are, are behaving like Communists when they smear him. Here is my source of this information: http://www.jbs.org/blog/give-love-for-hate-as-dylan-ratigan-attacks-with-smears.html

[Troy]

Barefoot and Progressive is the wittiest (and best)blog about central KY politics. We've said this again and again, and we'll keep saying it: If the American people elected a white liberal from Chicago named Barry Owens, instead of a man of African descent whose name sounds "Muslim", then there would be no Tea Party movement today. President Obama's race and family/ethnic heritage make him an easy target for the ignorant hordes of Tea Partiers and 9/12ers.

[Bill]

This is such hypocritical Alinskyism. If you wanted to play that disgusting game then the blogger could be considered anti-Semitic because he assumes only those who are pro-Israel are Jewish and that the comment about New York was referring to religion. It's *his* frame of mind that's distorted.

I can't read the commenter's mind he was referring to but it can easily be considered that he was opposed to any group advocating for a foreign country and then making donations from out-of-state. In fact others that responded in the thread made that exact argument as well. Isn't the out-of-state argument what Paul is slammed about every chance Grayson gets?

In fact I remember when Payne/Sonka called the widely popular Downfall video anti-Semitic...yet apparently Sonka has used it multiple times to make jokes about political opponents himself:

http://barefootandprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/09/hitler-reacts-to-obamas-message-to.html

http://barefootandprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/03/no-twitter-for-hitler.html

So if the parody video is anti-Semitic so are Payne and Sonka... such craven liberal hypocrisy!

[John Jay]

I looked at this comment thread, and to be honest, I was expecting some juvenile guy on there to have spouted off with some anti-semitic rant. You know what though, the criticism is that New York Democrats are pouring money into Trey's REPUBLICAN Kentucky Senate campaign, and they don't like it. The mention of "pro-Israel" comes from the Politico article posted yesterday I believe, the article linked to in the first post of that thread, and doesn't indicate (to me at least) an offensive and bigoted perspective.

Just my 2 cents.

[Proud Conservative]

According to the liberal blogger world, if you are white and you marry a white person -- you are a racist.

Hardcore Paul supporters could not possibly be racists because they are individualists. Liberals are collectivists. So, they can't understand what it is like to judge a person as an individual.