By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--December 19, 2011
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Paul’s more mainstream supporters have always explained away his popularity with 9/11 “Truthers” as an unfortunate consequence of his altruistic, if at times naïve, libertarian ethos: The man just loves freedom so much that he’s loath to turn away backers who may think differently from him. To anyone who bothers to look into Ron Paul’s record, that claim is simply not credible.Now, let’s look at this young Mr. Kirchick. He is generally centrist, sometimes left of center, to be sure. Kirchick is also gay. However, he calls himself a “gay recovering leftist,” and supported the Iraq war and other military interventions of the Bush era. He has in the past preferred the label “libertarian” to any other. He is one of the few writers that has found outlets in both left and right leaning magazines and newspapers. So, there is his pedigree for those interested. For me, I’ve read all of Kirchick’s articles on Paul and his points seem quite solid to me. Understanding Kirchick’s political proclivities and taking those into consideration, I find what he’s written about Paul to be solid. What it reveals to me is the utter shame that Ron Paul is thought to be a worthy candidate in any GOP primary for any position whatever. I tend to see that his fan base of racists, Jew haters, and conspiracy nuts don’t tend to vote for the most part and in talking to many of his ardent — and cultic — supporters over the last few years I see people that do not fit in at all with the rest of the GOP. In fact, in talking to his supporters I find few of them have any knowledge at all of politics outside of “Doctor Paul’s” take on it. They see the whole world through the Paul prism and aren’t well informed otherwise. I also feel that most of them will just fade away once Paul himself finally goes away in 2012 (Paul announced that he won’t run for reelection to his House seat, so unless he wins the White House his political career seems to be over). I’d like to note that this is no new position for me. Back in September I wrote a similar piece lambasting Ron Paul. In that piece I also note that Paul appeals to only on small wing of the GOP: the economic wing. I noted then and still believe that he is a disaster for the national security wing and the family values wings of the party. A candidate that appeals to only one third of a party base is unelectable. But even that appeal is among people that are blissfully unaware of his racist past, his associations with wackos, and his support of every conspiracy theory that have come down the pike from the Bilderbergers to the one that claims the CIA started the AIDS virus. Finally, even if Ron Paul was able to credibly claim he isn’t really an anti-Semite, the fact that he has for decades and until this very day accepted the support of and cavorted with such people is a disqualifier.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.