You may have heard about this:
(Rand) Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul’s office as his social media director in August 2012.
From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Steve M makes a good point:
The most interesting aspect of the story is the source: the Washington Free Beacon, run by Palin apologist and Bill Kristol son-in-law Matthew Continetti….
I think the Beacon feels free to go after Rand not because of the racism, but because a publication run by Bill Kristol’s son-in-law is inevitably going to be very, very skeptical of people with isolationist tendencies, even if they’re not absolute. I strongly suspect that if Rand were a hawk, this story wouldn’t have run.
I’m not a big fan of the Pauls. I agree with Ron’s critique of American foreign policy to some extent but the family’s been in bed with racist, anti-Semitic loonies too long for me to ignore. Also too, I get sick of Glenn Greenwald and Young Conor telling me I’m a hypocrite for not liking them more.
LittlePig
Young Rand associating with racists?! Gracious, what will Old Dr. Liberty think of his wayward spawn!
schrodinger's cat
Why do we care about the Pauls? Ron Paul stood apart in the crazy clown parade of GOP presidential hopefuls because of his foreign policy views. To me at least the younger Paul doesn’t really stand apart from the other GOP crazies. YMMV.
ETA: Fashion Advice: Needs to get a better wig.
catclub
@LittlePig: Crazy Uncle Liberty. Mind your Pierce-isms.
catclub
Interesting that the auto-generated ad to see Ron Paul lists Krauthammer, arch neo-con, as well as other less well known, crazy people.
Comrade Dread
@schrodinger’s cat: Because a lot of people take them seriously, both on the right and on the left.
It again doesn’t really surprise me that they’re in bed with neo-Confederates. There is a pretty strong strain of State’s rights that exists within libertarianism, and I’ve often heard Lincoln compared to a tyrant and the start of the demise of the small government Republic that was believed to have existed.
Comrade Dread
@catclub: I think his general rule about them is also spot on: if you talk to them or their supporters, they sound perfectly reasonable and sane for 5 minutes. Then things take a quick turn into a brick wall of crazy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That’s interesting, I was a little confused about this being in the Beacon. I’m a little surprised this guy got hired, not by Rand hiring him. Fancy degrees or no, I’ve always thought his elevator didn’t go all the way to the top floor, but I’ve just assumed there’s some Rove or Lindsey Graham eminence grise type guiding his (I still think futile) presidential ambitions and watching out precisely for shit like this, given Pappy’s newsletter and Rand’s belief that lunch counters should be allowed to discriminate.
Anoniminous
A plague on both their houses.
schrodinger's cat
@Comrade Dread:
On the intertoobz, yes, IRL I don’t know. To me, they come across as cranks. Their appeal seems very gender specific.
Spaghetti Lee
It’s amazing how, by sheer cosmic coincidence, the non-racist, only-concerned-with-the-size-of-government Paul family has managed to attract so many anti-Semites, neo-confederates, white supremacists, and other such characters as valued friends and advisors. Man, some guys just can’t catch a break, you know?
Baud
I don’t even see how that’s plausibly hypocritical.
Bobby Thomson
Why would that make you a hypocrite? You support civil rights.
max
Also too, I get sick of Glenn Greenwald and Young Conor telling me I’m a hypocrite for not liking them more.
Weigel:
Brave brave Sir Rand, bravely ran away. (‘I did not!’)
That said,
Other than that, Mr. Kristol, what do you think of Rand Paul?
I not only get tired of hearing from Brave Conor about the wonders of Paul, I also get sick of ‘moderate liberals’ or ‘centrists’ or ‘moderate Republicans’ telling me that I should like Bill Kristol *better* because human rights/immigration/somesuch BS. Kristol is a ratfucking racist fascist, and Rand is (pseudo-) libertarian racist, and the correct answer is ‘attack them both directions’.
max
[‘Thank you for your attention.’]
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodinger’s cat: I think The Village thinks he’s a front runner for GOP ’16, which pretty much goes along with your gender specificity argument, and I think you could add in race specificity (“my son Josh says he has a huge following at Sub Ivy U!”). I think he will be, like Santorum, headache for whoever the front-runner(s) are.
scav
A Paul/Palin ticket could presumably be a national zipper ticket, with the South and Frozen Northland declaring their Independence from the rest of the Nation in a bid for True ‘Founding Father’s Freedom, all the while invoking the mythical ‘mercan Heartland. Party of Secessionists: no wonder they’re bananas — they’re all trying to peel away. (Perry is playing 3rd fiddle in the same orchestra.)
Hang Separately.
Thinking more, the Zipper Ticket also shows a more than lurid interest in what happens behind the zippers of da gheyz and wimminz . . .
dedc79
I hope for the day when the Pauls will be taken about as seriously as Lyndon LaRouche.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@max:
That can’t be the Bill Kristol who predicted that the war in Iraq would last two months. Not the Bill Kristol who worked so diligently to sell the McCAin campaign on Sarah Palin. No way.
They must mean the other, other Bill Kristol. You know; the one without the the big black rubber shoes, red putty nose, and the seltzer bottle.
Zifnab
@max: We had Howard Dean pulling this shit with the PPACA bill, trying to whip up a stubborn minority within the House to kill the bill because it didn’t go far enough. I generally like Howard Dean, but its times like that when I’m glad he didn’t become President. The President is a centrist by necessity. Otherwise, he doesn’t get any legislation he actually likes.
JWL
..”I get sick of Glenn Greenwald and Young Conor telling me I’m a hypocrite for not liking them more”.
That’s pretty much how I feel about being called politically naive by knee jerk supporters of Obama when criticizing the president.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
See, it’s okay to be a white supremacist; as long as you observe the forms and speak the right shibboleths with the right accent.
Bobby Thomson
@JWL: Are you a Pauline?
Southern Beale
Civility, people!
What sick fucks.
And the money quote:
Hope he sues them. What for, I dunno. But jesus.
El Caganer
In an ideal world the Paulistas and the neo-cons would devour each other.
Southern Beale
Nobody could have anticipated that the son of a noted racist and homophobe recently outed for colluding with white supremacists would in fact himself be a racist.
This piece on the marriage of Libertarians and racists was really interesting, BTW.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@dedc79: I have a soft spot for LaRouche. There’d always be a table at the county fair, in the weirdo section where nobody would go. They were always fairly close to where the Birchers would be set up, and there’d be one or two lonely guys with some batshit insane signage and that look in their eyes that said “come talk to me and I will bore you for five hours straight with my crazy superpowers”.
Reminds me of my childhood.
Trollhattan
@max:
The Pauls are multigenerational grifters who purportedly also practice medicine in addition to offering up new avenues of political malpractice. They can both rot in hell, the sooner the better.
Mike in NC
There are racist shock jocks working in SC?
I’m shocked!
Roger Moore
@El Caganer:
ITYM Paultroons.
gelfling545
Occasionally non-intervention policies may arise from a disinclination to have anything to do with those nasty foreigners rather than respect for sovereignty or a deep love of peace.
Redshirt
@JWL: So which Republicans are you supporting in 2014/2016?
IowaOldLady
Surely even Republicans have to be able to hide their racism better than Rand Paul does. You could run endless loops of him telling Maddow that lunch counter owners should be able to refuse to serve blahs.
OTOH, if they want to nominate him, please proceed.
Roger Moore
@Southern Beale:
I see small government conservatives as the logical extension of the civil rights era bigots who decided to close down public services rather than make them available to blacks. They’re just trying to do it to the whole welfare state, rather than piecemeal.
Shakezula
In this case that’s called incest with a side order of masturbation.
Shakezula
I was sent to Modville? Was it the I word or the M word?
Baud
Aren’t there some progressive Democrats (at least in the House) that are as good or better than the Pauls on all the issues the Pauls are supposedly “good” on (war, drugs, MIC) without the immense negatives. If liberal blogs care about those particular issues so much, why don’t they seem to get as much play on the blogs as the Pauls do?
ET
For a second I read that publication name as Free Bacon.
Trollhattan
@Baud:
Watching the Pauls hold forth on, say, the Wawah on Drugggs is like watching tap-dancing dogs. Youre amazed they’re able to do it at all, not at the quality of the dance.
ChrisNYC
Continetti is married? I thought he was under 17.
Trollhattan
@ET:
That’s how I read it Every Darn Time.
“Mmmm, bacon.”
Trollhattan
@ChrisNYC:
Maybe he’s the blog commenter who married Winebox Annie?
MattF
The Pauls, fils et père, are both cranks, and their crankitude can’t be concealed for long. And the Kristol clan are Straussians. And I”m looking forward to the day that the Republican party has shrunk to the point where it can be taken into the bathroom and flushed.
ruemara
@Trollhattan: Rather a slur on bacon, sir.
SiubhanDuinne
@catclub:
Huh. My auto-generated ad wants me to convert my IRA/401K into Gold!
Trollhattan
@ruemara:
Perhaps, but bacon can take it. Bacon is invincible!
Trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Perfect. Just like right now being a perfect time to buy goooold (at the bargain price of only several times what it was just a few years ago).
MattR
Just drove past a Larouche-ite who had setup a an Impeach Obama table complete with signs that “Benghazigate is worse that Watergate”. Did not have time or energy to stop and argue so I made sure to start laughing hysterically as soon as he made eye contact.
taylormattd
@Forum Transmitted Disease: and when you were a child looking at the LaRouche table, did you perchance notice the large posters depicting the president dressed up as Adolf Hitler, including the little ‘stache?
MattF
@MattR: I’m not a believer, but I do hope, nonetheless, that there’s a special place in Hell for Larouche and his cult.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
FTFY.
Violet
So is this a slightly more mainstream conservative publication trying to sabotage the future of the more wingnutty conservative? Or am I reading this wrong?
MattF
@Violet: I think it’s the Kristols attacking anyone who suggests that war isn’t the most terrificest thing in the whole world.
ChrisNYC
@Trollhattan: Ann Althouse is William Kristol’s daughter! It all makes sense now.
rikyrah
the father and son are racist grifters…no shock in the least.
artem1s
@catclub:
amen, grifters, both of them. spawn is going to follow in his daddy’s footsteps and make buckets running for preznit, over and over, on the teahaddists dime.
also, 5 minute rule applies.
Woodrowfan
keep in mind that the Free Beacon was founded by some millionaire because he thought the other freebie, The Washington Examiner, was not conservative enough. And the Examiner was started by some millionaire because he thought the Washington Times was not conservative enough. So basically it’s the Washington Times cubed.
NickT
There’s only one good Paul, and that’s Ru. The others are just sad little fascist punks, racists and goldbuggers. Not an ounce of integrity among them.
burnspbesq
@JWL:
Truth hurts? Dang.
Roger Moore
@NickT:
John, George, and Ringo disagree.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: Well, George and Ringo at least.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, Ringo, at least.
Jebediah
@NickT:
Paul’s Boutique is pretty alright.
JWL
@Bobby Thomson: How the hell should I know?
If I am one, I’m a Pauline who wants a cracker.
JWL
@burnspbesq: “Thar she blows”!
Any & all criticism of The Man From Chicago is by definition unwarranted.
LanceThruster
Wouldn’t anyone not supporting the Zionist agenda get linked by default to “anti-Semitic loons?”
JWL
@JWL: OK, I get it now.
By ‘Pauline’, you were referring to Rand Paul.
I first read this post earlier today, and forgot about the Paul angle when I perused this comment section again hours later.
The answer being not merely, “no, I’m not”, but rather, “fuck no, I’m not”.
But if I was a Polly (sic) I would want a cracker.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
This.
Seriously: in real life, how well does Ron Paul do in elections? Extremely badly, seems to me. Last presidential election, the GOP had that phase when they were desperately looking for any front runner other than Romney, and Paul didn’t get that spot once – a black man and a woman beat him in that respect. In the GOP. That really says all you need to know about him.
His kid may go further, but only because he’s moved closer to mainstream Republican ideology instead of staying on the fringes.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
If you go back far enough, the marriage between racists and glibertarians goes all the way back to the Tilden-Hayes Compromise of 1876, where the Democrats ceded the White House (and by extension the federal government) to the robber-baron run Republicans, who in exchange pulled the troops out of the South, ended Reconstruction and allowed the ex-Confederate elites to rule as they saw fit.
(And that’s only because pre-Civil War history isn’t my forte – I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find similar cooperation even earlier on).
ffredpalakon
@Southern Beale: The Robert Parry piece looks fascinating. Thanks for posting that.
BruinKid
Weigel is probably correct that this won’t stick as it should to the Pauls. I remember in late 2011 debating the racist Ron Paul newsletters with some of my friends who were Ron Paul supporters, and who were minorities, and even they were brushing it off as if it were nothing, making every excuse in the Ron Paul playbook. They had been completely blinded by his “awesomeness” that they couldn’t see what was right in front of their faces, and I don’t think a damn thing has changed.
This story may resonate among the non-Paulbots, but don’t expect it to do anything to the “Liberty” movement.
mk3872
Mr. Snowden & Mr. Geenwald, as well as their merry band of “libertarian” followers will surely forgive Sen Paul for his racism and hatred of public education, unions and minimum wages.
Because they are all single-issue voters ala anti-abortionists.
Villago Delenda Est
@BruinKid:
The cult of personality around Ron Paul would make Stalin and Mao jealous.
beliebert
“I’m not a big fan of the Pauls. I agree with Ron’s critique of American foreign policy to some extent but….”
Ah yes resident Ball Juice concern troll is concern.
…but what you idiot?
That’s like saying “I’m not a big fan of Ted Bundy. I agree with his reasoning about why he did it but…”
Nat
@NickT:
No integrity? Pshaw! My firebaggin’ brogressive boner says different.
Jebediah
@beliebert:
Clever – adding one letter to your nym to escape the pie filter.
Get back in your pie-hole, you tediousity!