Neocons and Obamaites Unite Against Rand Paul
“Progressives” jump into bed with Lindsey Graham
The response to Rand Paul’s historic filibuster against the nomination of John Brennan met with rapturous applause from civil libertarians and anti-interventionists on the right and the left – followed by harsh denunciations from Democratic party partisans and their neocon allies. It was a moment when the political landscape redefined itself, traditional categories of “left” and “right” underwent a seismic shift – and the true friends, and enemies, of liberty stood revealed.
On the right, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham took to the floor the next day, livid with rage. “To my Republican colleagues,” lisped Lindsey:
“I don’t remember any of you coming down here suggesting that President Bush was going to kill anybody with a drone, do you? They had a drone program back then, all of a sudden this drone program has gotten every Republican so spun up. What are we up to here?
“People are astonished that President Obama is doing many of the things that President Bush did. I’m not astonished. I congratulate him for having the good judgment to understand we’re at war. And to my party, I’m a bit disappointed that you no longer apparently think we’re at war.”
Poor wittle Windsey: he’s sooooo disappointed. The party’s over. The hysteria of the Bush era – when “don’t you know we’re at war?” could dispense with the petty objections of constitutionalists, who worried we were losing our freedoms in the process of defending them against the Big Bad Terrorists – is history we’d rather forget. What Republicans are “up to” is that they’re suddenly remembering they’re supposed to be the party of individual rights, a legacy Sen. Graham would rather forget.
Notice with what alacrity Graham repeated the talking points of Democratic party hacks who reacted in precisely the same way: the man has an ear for the conventional wisdom, a talent that has gotten him on more Sunday morning talk shows than anyone except his fellow “amigo,” Mad John McCain. The master of bombast, McCain raged:
“To allege that the United States of America, our government would drop a drone hellfire missile on Jane Fonda, that, that is… that brings the conversation from a serious discussion about U.S. policy to the realm of the ridiculous,”
“We’ve done, I think, a disservice to a lot of Americans by making them believe they’re somehow in danger from their government: they’re not. But we are in danger from a dedicated, longstanding, easily replacable leadership enemy that is hell-bent on our destruction, and this leads us to having to do things that perhaps we haven’t had to do in other more conventional wars.”
The Senator wants to convince Americans – especially his fellow GOP’ers – that we have nothing to fear from our own government, but too many of them remember Waco – where 76 men, women, and children, all US citizens, were murdered in cold blood by order of then Attorney General Janet Reno in a military-style assault. And he’s going to have an equally hard time convincing African-Americans the US government is a harmless, and even benign entity they needn’t fear – because too many of them remember the aerial bombing of the MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia. Sixty-one homes were destroyed in the resulting firestorm: eleven MOVE members were killed, including 5 children as young as 7 years old.
If McCain’s message to his fellow Republicans is “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help,” he had better go back to his focus groups and come up with a new line. Underscoring his own cluelessness, he even had the nerve to cite a War Street Journal editorial which sneered: “If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in college dorms.”
That’s right, Senator: all your children belongs to us. The future of the GOP – if it is to have one – resides in those “libertarian kids” who hate you and everything you stand for.
This is precisely what McCain fears, and that fear is shared by the so-called “progressives” of the Democratic party, who would much prefer to run against Bush era troglodytes than the new breed of Ron Paul Republicans who have arisen to revive a party that has just about died.
This same fear – and loathing – was all over MSNBC the day after #StandwithRand exploded the Twitterverse. The thuggish Ed Schultz ranted and raved that “Rand Paul is dangerous,” although he did not say to whom. He even took a poll of his brain-dead audience: 90 percent agreed that Sen. Paul is indeed “dangerous! Lawrence O’Donnell showed a video montage of sentences from Sen. Paul’s speech taken out of context, ranted that the Kentucky Republican is “ridiculous,” “paranoid,” and “sick,” and then invited his two guests – E. J. Dionne, and Huffpo writer Ryan Grim – to agree with him. They didn’t. Dionne opined that Sen. Paul’s performance was certainly effective, and gave him credit for bringing attention to a subject few Democrats will touch. Grim made a very good point that almost made the permanent smirk on O’Donnell’s face disappear:
“Frankly, if there is a classified kill list that includes American citizens — if you don’t want conspiracy theories to start circulating then publish that list. If the people on that list are dedicated revolutionaries or extremists they are not going to be surprised to find their name on the list. Publish the list and let people challenge them. As long as there is a secret list of people the President thinks he can kill, you are going to have people concocting all sorts of theories, and there is no way, beyond transparency, that you can challenge that.”
Sen. Paul and Grim are surely not the first people to raise this point: indeed, the same question the junior Senator from Kentucky insisted on getting an answer to was made by none other than MSNBC’S very own Rachel Maddow a few days before the Brennan hearings. Here‘s Rachel:
“The questions themselves are so basic that they are almost more telling than some of the answers they could but probably won`t receive. Questions like, for example, how much evidence does the president need to determine that a particular American can be lawfully killed?
“Also – this is one that sticks with me – does the president have to provide individual Americans with the opportunity to surrender before killing them?
“And, are there any geographic limitations on the intelligence community`s authority to use lethal force against Americans? Including, can intelligence agencies kill people under this authority in the United States? Could the CIA or any other intelligence agency come kill you if the appropriate high-ranking official in the Obama administration, say President Obama, decided that you were affiliated with al Qaeda, and you were a threat, and you might act eminently to endanger their nation? Could you then be legally killed as you lay in your bed?“
One has to ask Senor O’Donnell: is Ms. Maddow “paranoid”? Is she “ridiculous”? And, last but hardly least, is she “sick”? One is also moved to inquire of the thuggish Schultz: is Rachel dangerous?
If you read the transcript linked above, it’s clear Maddow imagined opposition to the Brennan nomination would come from the left – which is why she found the possibility “interesting” – but what happened was that, except for Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) – who wound up voting for Brennan – the “liberals” were mute (except for Dick Durbin, who came to the floor to defend the drone program). Instead, the opposition came from the right – which is why, after having raised precisely the same question brought to the Senate floor by Sen. Paul, Maddow pointedly ignored the #StandwithRand filibuster, leaving it to her MSNBC colleagues to trash it.
Like Shultz and O’Donnell, the neocons were in a frothy-mouthed frenzy over Rand’s spectacular success. David “Axis of Evil” Frum wrote:
“Executive assassinations, hyperinflation leading to populist dictatorships, ordinary Americans protecting themselves by launching insurgencies against the state – these are themes of Rand Paul’s politics, now endorsed by his Republican Senate colleagues. Out of what doom-haunted imagination are such dark fantasies born? The Republican party used to be the party more serious about defending America. Now it provides a home to those more doubtful that America is worth defending.”
Of course, the “doom-haunted imagination” out of which such scenarios are born is history itself, but ignoring the lessons of history is what the neocon doctrine of “American exceptionalism” is all about: we are supposedly immune from such afflictions. But are we? Frum’s own literary effusions prove this is not the case.
In a book co-authored with Richard Perle, An End To Evil, Frum advocated the establishment of a comprehensive government database that would keep tabs on the credit histories, political activities, religious affiliation, and “biometric” information on every American citizen: a TIPS program that was, in effect, an elaborate “snitch” network that “might pick up a break in the certain rhythm or pattern of a community,” as George W. Bush’s Homeland Security director Tom Ridge put it. Frum wants to establish a “domestic intelligence agency” to keep tabs on “subversives.” No, the FBI isn’t good enough: we need real spies, says Frum, linked to a volunteer network of amateur sleuths – your ever-vigilant neighborhood neocon peeking in your window, and reporting his findings to Frum’s political police.
It can’t happen here? It can and will happen here if the David Frums of this world have anything to say about it.
Naturally, the neocon-of-neocons, Bill Kristol, wasn’t standing with Rand, not for a minute: “A Republican party that follows the path of Rand Paul will end up as thoroughly defeated at the ballot box as Macbeth was routed on the battlefield of Dunsinane. And as deservedly so.” Really? Will the Republican party be as thoroughly defeated as it was when Kristol and his chosen team of McCain-Palin were thoroughly throttled – or when neocon sock-puppet Mitt Romney was beaten within an inch of the GOP’s life, and basically reduced to a regional party? Kristol, who has been consistently wrong about everything for the past ten years or so, is hardly qualified as a political prophet. Yet he persists, and his methods – and those of his allies on both sides of the left-right divide – were best described by the witches of MacBeth:
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
Yes, the air is plenty filthy in Washington, D.C., but at least we know there is someone sitting in the US Senate who has yet to choke on it. Long may he breathe and prosper, and that’s why I #StandwithRand – as should you.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
I had great fun on Twitter the night of #StandwithRand, somehow acquiring over 200 more followers (!), and I urge you to join me on this wonderfully interactive site: you can do so by going here.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Forward by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy my biography of the great libertarian thinker, An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), here.
Read more by Justin Raimondo
- #StandwithRand – March 7th, 2013
- The Libertarian Republican Heritage
(Part II) – March 5th, 2013 - The Libertarian Republican Heritage – March 3rd, 2013
- The Syrian Back Door to War With Iran – February 28th, 2013
- What Was That All About? – February 26th, 2013
JLS
March 10th, 2013 at 9:16 pm
"The Senator wants to convince Americans – especially his fellow GOP’ers – that we have nothing to fear from our own government, but too many of them remember Waco –"
Remember the 150 SWAT team raids a day. Remember a nation that has 5% of the world's population and over 25%, a full quarter of the world's prisoners. Remember the murders, beatings and tazings that occur on a weekly basis at least in America.
We already have much to fear from our local governments as well as the federal government.
Chris Condon
March 10th, 2013 at 11:26 pm
For much of America's cultural and intellectual elite, loyalty to the Democratic Party trumps everything else.
Oswaldwasalefty
March 11th, 2013 at 12:52 am
And across the Rubicon the liberal Democrats go to join the neo-cons in advocating for Empire. While they're at it they might as well stick the final nail in the coffin of the Republic and make Augustus Obama President-For-Life.
Anybody notice that we're at war with a foe hell bent on destroying us? Nice to be "at war" with no bombs falling on your community, as they are falling on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, etc.,. All of this underlines the fact the U.S. is unchallengeable militarily, invasion proof and uses its military only for aggressive purposes outside of its legally recognized borders.
John V. Walsh
March 11th, 2013 at 1:39 am
Good column.
It is not just the Dems but the pwogwessives who either ignore Rand's filibuster or give it only very grudging acknowledgement. Medea Benjamin in the pages of antiwar.com the other day is an example of the latter. If that is the best that the pwogs can do, they are in even worse shape than I had thought.
With Rand Paul's filibuster the initiative in the anti-war, anti-Empire movement passes to the libertarian side.
Since WWI at least the forebears of today's pwogs have supported war in the end. Lenin castigated them for it way back then and took Russia out of the war after the Bolshevik revolution.
The Left is dead in the US and the pwogs are a poor substitute for it.
Yonatan
March 11th, 2013 at 2:16 am
And the Republicans? Why are they not impeaching Obama? Because they are more than happy to use the powers Obama has extended, following the Bush/Cheney unitary executive power grab.
Mark
March 11th, 2013 at 2:19 am
With one of the pivotal questions about drones being, Can they be used against Americans on American soil?". One must wonder, what do other countries think when the U.S. government thinks it can kill Americans with impunity on THEIR soil? Do other countries not have laws against murder? Or, is the fact that the U.S. has laws against murder just part of the jingoistic American Exceptionalism rant?
Johnny in Wi.
March 11th, 2013 at 3:39 am
Great essay Justin: This country can never have full justice until Obama, Bush and their respective gangs are put on trial for their many crimes.
Joe Ed
March 11th, 2013 at 5:02 am
Loyalty to their cushy careers and fear of the non-existent Jewish Lobby trumps all
No JOJO
March 11th, 2013 at 5:32 am
Sure cure for America's evil ways : Politician term limits
tinkersailor
March 11th, 2013 at 6:32 am
The term limiting factor should be elections. breach of oath, illegal conduct, and corrupt actions should be cause as term enders, not honest tenure…. The elections are already auctions, most going to the highest contributors. Honest politicians who represent the interests of their constituents and Americas are targeted by foreign countries lobbies, corporate pirates and religious cults. The more unknowns there are mean the more horses at auction to be nurtured by the moneyed interests…. as in, not in the interests of ordinary citizens. Term limits are opportunities for corporations and foreign powers to purchase representation in our government. It's not ideas or integrity that wins…. It's thirty second spots bolstered with infomercials and (bribed) endorsements. Who do you represent?
amacd385
March 11th, 2013 at 7:06 am
Oswaldwas, I commend you for noting that our country has been taken over by EMPIRE — it's specifically a dual-party 'Vichy' facade of neocons and Obamaite (neoliberals), as Justin correctly diagnoses.
However, while I applaud Justin in this 2nd column on the 'Paul impact' in recognizing the neocon and noeliberal pro-war agreement on 'wars abroad', Justin continues (for some strange reason) not to recognize the correct NAME of this un-holy alliance of right and left war-nuts for foreign wars and domestic tyranny, which you (and I) have so precisely used to describe and diagnose this cancerous tumor: EMPIRE.
Justin needs to start looking at and talking about the obvious commonality of these neocons and neoliberals BOTH 'abroad' and 'at home' — and it not just that they support unlimited wars abroad AND unlimited breach of liberties with tyranny 'at home'.
As Hannah Arendt said more clearly than Justin (so far):
"Empire abroad entails tyranny at home"
"It's the Empire, stupid"
And Justin and antiwar.com are not so stupid to any longer ignore that antiwar.com PLUS anti-tyranny.com are combined in anti-Empire.com.
Empire "abroad" acts in perpetual wars like empire is traditionally thought of.
But Empire "at home" acts like tyranny (and absence of liberty) is traditionally thought of.
Any principled anti-war libertarian should EASILY understand this — and have it in his DNA or burned into the back of his brain.
Best,
Alan
"If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully — because it may not be your country, but a Global Empire only posing as your former country."
eric siverson
March 11th, 2013 at 8:18 am
johny it looks like you may be on trail before them
eric siverson
March 11th, 2013 at 8:19 am
its a cure but should help
wars r u.s.
March 11th, 2013 at 8:58 am
How does Rand feel about the execution of al-Awlaki? I loved the fillibuster but until all of our summary executions are of the same concern to him as Americans being offed on their own soil, I refuse to jump on the bandwagon
ARESGODOFWAR
March 11th, 2013 at 9:26 am
Justin,
First, why do you peddle the kool-aid that the republican wing of the war party is dying and becoming a "regional" party? With 232 out of 435 House seats (working majority) and 45 out of 100 Senate Seats (enough to filibuster anything, as Rand Paul showed) and add in Democrat war party members from red states, the republican wing of the war party is anything but regional.
Second, It can't happen here? I can and will happen here if………..
Sorry, Justin, it has already happened here. As JLS points out, the criminal record of unlawful murders, beatings, tasings, evidence planting including the use of "drop weapon" guns to frame suspects of law enforcement in Amerika is well documented. As for the domestic spy agency, its spies and snitch network you mentioned, that is already in place. See the link below:
https://www.infragard.net/
ARESGODOFWAR
March 11th, 2013 at 9:27 am
Justin,
As for "Rand Paul" being your new "hero", let's see if he moves aggressively against AIPAC, JINSA, and the fascist mass murdering neocon network. Rand Paul has quite a ways to go before getting a vote of confidence from me. I would advise caution on your part and put a full court press on Rand Paul to get him to become truly "ANTIWAR"……………
Pash
March 11th, 2013 at 9:58 am
Great article, but forgot to mention that the FBI does conduct Gestapo style assassinations on US citizens, on US soil, while they lie in their beds, drugged by the FBI so they can't wake up and protest: Fred Hampton.
omop
March 11th, 2013 at 9:59 am
Speaking of Perle, Frum and Kristol and friends.
Three writers are quoted as having said the following;- In Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 2002 book Two Centuries Together, the Nobel Laureate and 11-year veteran of the Bolshevik gulag expresses outrage that Jewish intellectuals were still refusing to recognize their ethnic responsibility in the slaughter of millions of Christians.
Solzhenitsyn also denounces modern Jews who pose as victims of an “antisemitic” Bolshevik government when that government was in fact heavily Jewish and Jews were among the worst perpetrators.
This selective amnesia is necessary for a people who ceaselessly proclaim their “innocence” of any provocative acts, as we regularly note in their writings, for example in an editorial in Israel magazine of April 2003, “the first Israeli monthly magazine in the French language” written under the name of a certain André Darmon.
He wrote: “To kill a Jew or a child makes God cry, for we are exterminating [in the Jew] the bearer of universal ethics and innocence.”
The late Joe Sobran, "History is replete with the lesson that a country in which Jews get the upper hand is in danger".
San Fernando Curt
March 11th, 2013 at 10:25 am
Fine piece. Scary prospect of liberal-neocon alliance, with handmaiden media to help it along.
Benjacomin Bozart
March 11th, 2013 at 10:36 am
And the Republicans marched in lockstep with Dear Leader Bush. I know a lot that post the Bush miss me yet picture. It just shows it's one party with a left and right wing.
On the other hand a generation of Republicans will have to pass in order for the young Paulistas to have a chance at reforming the so-called conservatives.
tinkersailor
March 11th, 2013 at 11:07 am
Gotta start somewhere………….
ABE
March 11th, 2013 at 12:34 pm
We all know the names of the rotten filth Liberal/Neocon same disgusting sludge. Yet somehow they evade the fury of the demented killers like Sandy hook and Batman shooters? One day that will change, I pray! Would anyone care if Kristol/Frum/Perle/Abrams….PERISHED in a hail of .223's ?
No it would be like the 4th of July!
Mr. Mojo
March 11th, 2013 at 12:34 pm
Better would be calling "campaign contributions" what they really are, bribes, and making bribing elected officials a capital offense for both briber and bribee.
Vojkan
March 11th, 2013 at 3:12 pm
So Mr. Raimondo, and that goes for Mr. Giraldi too, will you ever have the honesty to admit that you were wrong about Obama, wrong about Hagel, and wrong about Rand Paul? What matters is money time, and how people behave in money time. There are those who follow the lead of their conscience and there are those who follow the lead of vanity, greed, and self-aggrandisement. Ron Paul obviously has bequeathed a conscience to his son, and his son made no promise but he acted. Obama and Hagel made promises, but all they ever did was just posturing. In money time, they sided with the devil. You should be ashamed of yourself for having endorsed them.
muggles
March 11th, 2013 at 3:27 pm
Your description of the Frum-Perle proposal for neighborhood snitch committees to "root out terrorists" is startlingly similar to the exact same type of groups set up in virtually every Communist country. Each neighborhood is monitored by "volunteer" busybodies who spy on their neighbors and pass along gossip or invent subversive activities to garner rewards.
These groups go by different names in different places but Frum-Perle surely knew where this template comes from. And these creeps try to pass themselves off as conservatives…
Toldev
March 11th, 2013 at 7:53 pm
I don't think term limits solve anything. Too many times, on the local and state level, I have seen a term limited rotten politician replaced by someone even worse. Under the current system, the scum always rises to the top. Until that is fixed, term limits are of little value.
Bob Kaercher
March 11th, 2013 at 9:17 pm
I see a future movie with this scene:
President Obama and senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham sitting around a table in the plushly furnished White House dining room, overly stocked with fine delicacies, making jokes with one another about drone strikes on Americans. We then cut to an increasingly exhausted Sen. Rand Paul on the senate floor, sweat running down his face, making a desperate and impassioned plea for the fundamental rights of Americans to be free of drone strikes erupting around them.
You just might see that on the big screen some day, the way things are going now.
Justin Raimondo
March 11th, 2013 at 11:06 pm
Good point
richard vajs
March 12th, 2013 at 6:35 am
Excuse me if I fail to get off the couch and march for Paul Rand – he is a four alarm phony. And a lot of you will get wise as soon as it is convenient for him to praise the human rights record of Israel, the rigged "free-enterprise system", or the DHS or any other popular crock of manure. Paul Rand found himself a "populist gimmick" temporarily useful – but then some people are perpetual suckers for a gimmick. It still reminds me of the scene of Lucy holding the football and an ever naive Charlie Brown thinking that this time he will actually get to kick the football.
jokeonus
March 12th, 2013 at 7:20 am
Mr. Raimondo, would you be so kind to comment on THIS:
"Disturbing: Rand Paul Calls for Means Testing and Raising the Retirement Age to "Save" Social Security"
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/03/dist…
You wrote a Rothbard biography. So you oughta know how aptly The Man nailed Reagan's great "libertarian" accomplishments, no? Don't you see that there's a replay in in the making?
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March 12th, 2013 at 10:05 am
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March 12th, 2013 at 3:19 pm
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WashingtonDC Goddamn
March 12th, 2013 at 7:00 pm
"Term limits" unfortunately has little effect on the negative proclivities of the elected politicians.