[Peace-discuss] The vindication of Ron Paul

[C. G. Estabrook]

That's quite remarkable - a fairly good account of the relation between the 
tea-partiers & Rep. Paul.

I suppose, being in the Baltimore Sun, it slipped through he normal Democratic 
party filters for the interpretation of the tea party.

On 11/19/10 10:56 PM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
> "It is [Ron Paul] who sparked a new American Revolution and, after all these 
> years, can no longer be easily ignored."
>
> The vindication of Ron Paul
> Will founding father of the tea party movement get his due from party leaders?
>
> Ron Smith
> Baltimore Sun
>
> 5:01 PM EST, November 18, 2010
>
> http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-smith-20101118,0,202354.column 
>
>
> Congressional Republicans used to enjoy the luxury of ignoring Ron Paul's 
> cantankerous objections to the political premises they shared with their 
> counterparts across the aisle. The question now is whether in the new Congress 
> to be seated in January the longtime Texas representative will be allowed to 
> chair the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology on the House 
> Financial Services Committee.
>
> Mr. Paul is the ranking minority member now, so the job would seem to be his 
> after the GOP sweep in the midterm election, but the Republican leadership 
> will decide whether to give the leading critic of the Federal Reserve Bank a 
> prominent role in overseeing the Fed itself as well as the U.S. Mint and the 
> U.S. relationship with the World Bank.
>
> As little as they may relish the idea described above, kicking him to the curb 
> could cause a huge problem with those new Republican representatives who 
> identify themselves with the tea party movement.
>
> Remember, it was Ron Paul supporters who kick-started the tea party into life 
> on Dec. 16, 2007, when they dumped a $6 million "money bomb" into his 
> presidential campaign on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.
>
> Not that all or even most tea partiers are Paulians when the rubber meets the 
> road. Abolishing the Patriot Act, which he advocates, probably wouldn't be at 
> the top of the priority list for the 52 Republican members of Congress who say 
> they'll join a Tea Party Caucus.
>
> Nor would most of these people back an actual anti-interventionist foreign 
> policy, or ending the drug war, or abolishing the Fed, as does Mr. Paul, who 
> has warned against what he sees as a neocon infiltration into the movement.
>
> In fact, loner that he is, the good doctor will distance himself from the 
> House Tea Party Caucus even though he is a towering figure to many of its 
> probable members. Responding to press queries, his chief of staff, Jeff Deist, 
> said, "Congressman Paul decided not to join the Tea Party Caucus. He strongly 
> believes that the tea party movement should remain a grassroots phenomenon, 
> rather than being co-opted by Washington or any political party."
>
> His son, Rand Paul, also a medical doctor, was elected to the U.S. Senate from 
> Kentucky and is working to organize a Tea Party Caucus within the Senate. 
> However much he might or might not agree with his father's more radical ideas 
> remains to be seen, but the potential for some much-needed principled dissent 
> from the justly maligned status quo in the upper chamber is tantalizing.
>
> We should be particularly grateful to Ron Paul for his controversial 
> performance in the GOP presidential debate in South Carolina in October 2007, 
> the one where he stood before his fellow candidates and supposedly "blamed 
> America" for the attacks of Sept. 11. Of course, he didn't actually "blame 
> America," he merely pointed out that foreign policy has consequences, and that 
> people get angry when their lands are occupied and they are bombed in their 
> homes: "They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq 
> for 10 years. … We've been in the Middle East. Right now, we're building an 
> embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent 
> bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the 
> Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting."
>
> Rudy Giuliani, who made his fortune exploiting the coincidence that he was New 
> York City's mayor when the attacks took place, won the biggest applause of the 
> night with this reaction: "That's really an extraordinary statement. That's 
> really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of 
> Sept.11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't 
> think I have ever heard that before and I have heard some pretty absurd 
> explanations for Sept. 11. I would ask the congressman withdraw that comment 
> and tell us that he didn't really mean that."
>
> That didn't happen. Ron Paul chose to speak to the American people as though 
> they were adults, thus violating the rules of Politics 101. "America's Mayor" 
> went on to spend more than $20 million to win a single vote at the nominating 
> convention.
>
> Ron Paul never came close to getting the presidential nomination. He just went 
> about his quirky business, talking to Americans as though they were capable of 
> understanding his critique of foreign policy and the dangers of mounting 
> public debt. Due to the Great Recession, a large number of them did understand 
> and acted on the information.
>
> It is he who sparked a new American Revolution and, after all these years, can 
> no longer be easily ignored.
>
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