Bloomberg for President: "a neoconservative, combat-avoiding, Bush-supporting, Middle-East-warmonger"

glenn...

[Michael Bloomberg] is just exactly what our country desperately needs, what it is missing most -- a neoconservative, combat-avoiding, Bush-supporting, Middle-East-warmonger who sees U.S. and Israeli interests as indistinguishable and inextricably linked, with a fetish for ever-increasing government control and surveillance, and a background as a Wall St. billionaire. We just haven't had enough of those in our political culture. Our political system, more than anything, is missing the influence of people like that. That's why it's broken: not enough of those.

[...]

In fact -- despite his steadfast neoconservatism -- it's hard to see how the candidacy of a divorced, unmarried, stridently pro-gun-control, pro-choice, socially liberal New York City billionaire would accomplish anything other than offering the Republicans their best hope of winning in 2008. All of this seems to be intended as punishment meted out by the Establishment to the Democrats -- using Bloomberg's billions as the weapon -- for not repudiating their loudmouth, restless liberal base strongly enough. That, more than anything, seems to be the oh-so-noble and trans-partisan purpose of David Broder, David Boren and Sam Nunn: to find a way to stifle the populist anger at our political establishment after 8 years of unrestrained Bush-Cheney devastation, increasingly represented (on the Democratic side) by the Scary, Angry, Intemperate John Edwards campaign.

this would be hysterically funny if it wasn't so goddam pathetic... if there was anything that should be bringing people together in a spirit of harmony, unity, and bipartisanship, it's restoring our country to the principles upon which it was founded and reversing and repudiating the willful flouting of the rule of law, the destruction of the constitution, the total absence of accountability, and our rapid descent into an "endemic surveillance society"... these jokers obviously define "bipartisanship" as "business as usual"...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Scott Paul on Repub attempts to ban Ron Paul

scott paul rails against the attempt to banish ron paul from the republican debates...

Ron Paul and I have very few things in common besides our last name. We agree on very little, and we defend those few policy positions we happen to share on very different ideological and philosophical grounds.

My namesake and I agree on one thing, though: Ron Paul has every right to participate in the Republican primary debates.

Saul Azunis, the Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, wants Paul out of the GOP debates simply because he finds Paul's ideas objectionable. Here's the direct quote:

"I think he would have felt much more comfortable on the stage with the Democrats in what he said last night and I think that he is a distraction in the Republican primary and he does not represent the base and he does not represent the party."

What nerve.

If candidates should ever be excluded from debates - and I leave that as an open question - it should be based on measured levels of support, simply so voters can get better acquainted with the more viable candidates. Interestingly, since Paul commented that the 9/11 attacks were motivated by U.S. military activity in the Middle East, interest in his candidacy has gone through the roof.

Clearly, the campaign to exclude Paul isn't based on his waning support or viability. This effort to exclude him on the basis of his ideas is more than absurd - it's an affront to democratic principles.

i - almost - completely agree... ron paul is a duly elected republican congressman from texas and a legitimate, declared candidate for the presidential nomination of his party... and the problem with that would be what, exactly...? we simply cannot tolerate this kind of overt censorship... ron paul is entitled to his views, to his party affiliation, and to his constitutional right to seek to represent his country by running for the highest office in the land...

now, for the "almost" part... allowing or disallowing a declared candidate to appear in a debate based on "measured levels of support," while sensible on its face, still troubles me... who decides what "levels of support" a candidate has to have to be considered debate-worthy...? and this is not just a problem of republican and democratic candidates, it also extends to third-party candidates... unity '08 comes to mind...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments