GOP Attacks On Ron Paul

Polls show show that GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul's impressive show of grassroots support in the Iowa caucus is driven by the support he is receiving among independent and younger voters--two critical blocs of voters that the winning presidential candidate in the November election traditionally captures. The thought of the independent, non-traditional thinking Paul winning the Republican presidential nomination has been turning establishment figures in the party apoplectic. The personal attacks against Paul are somewhat ironic when you consider that Paul, who as far as I've been able to determine, is the only Republican candidate who has consistently supported conservative fiscal policies throughout his political career, is faithful to his wife and is a proud veteran who served his country with honor.

The attacks against Ron Paul by the Redstate blog have been particularly over the top. One blogger has run a four-part series entitled, "Ron Paul is crazy." Another calls him "The Real Warmonger" despite the fact that he is the only candidate advocating our withdrawal from undeclared wars ordered by the military industrial complex to keep the war machine running at full capacity, even if it bankrupts and destroys the country in the process. He is attacked by another blogger for having a base that is "Not Republican," who also suggested Paul is the Barack Obama of the 2012 campaign who would become another Andrew Johnson-like president because he would have no support in Congress if he is elected. And that's just what the Redstate blog had to say about Paul in the last three days.

The attacks on Ron Paul by the Redstate blog go beyond intraparty feuding in my judgment, particularly when you consider that its founder, a paid commentator for CNN, says he is "comfortable supporting Newt Gingrich" for the nomination despite this same blogger's view that Herman Cain had to drop out of the Republican presidential race because of unproven accusations he is a womanizer. Gingrich is now on his third wife after dumping wives one and two for younger congressional aides. Gingrich supported health care mandates and global warming before he opposed them. He was driven from the Speakership of the House under an ethics cloud and fined more than $200,000 for his bad behavior after he rose through the ranks of the House GOP's leadership, in part, on his success in bringing down the former House Majority Leader on ethics charges he led against him. Lest we forget that this principled conservative inked a $1.8 million consulting contract with Freddie Mac at the same time the agency was seeking $317 billion in federal bailout assistance while insisting with a straight face that the money he was paid was not for lobbying Congress.

Pardon me while I put on my tin foil hat, but if I didn't know better, I might think the Redstate blog is ground zero for an Operation Mockingbird-style operation in reference to a propaganda operation funded by the CIA beginning in the 1950s when it put thousands of American journalists on its payroll to promote its agenda for the country. By 1975, the Church investigations by the U.S. Senate's select committee on intelligence estimated that the CIA was spending $265 million a year to misinform the public through its covert propaganda machine. President Ford fired former CIA Director William Colby after he testified to the Church Committee about the extent of the Operation Mockingbird activities, as well as other covert actions by the CIA and replaced him with President George H.W. Bush, who was one of the first CIA agents contacted by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy because of Hoover's concern of possible CIA involvement in the killing of the president. As we now know, the American news media bombarded us with misinformation in the lead up to the Iraqi War based on totally false claims concocted by the George W. Bush-run CIA that Saddam Hussein had developed weapons of mass destruction.

It sure looks like some pretty powerful forces far beyond the simpleton thinking of the Redstate bloggers are at work stoking fear and misinformation about Ron Paul because of the threat he poses to the military industrial complex. I can't help but think that these voices sound remarkably similar to the establishment GOP meme in 1980 warning us that Ronald Reagan was too old, too dumb and too dangerous to elect as president. Will you be fooled by their propaganda campaign against Ron Paul? And shouldn't you know that these same forces would just as soon see four more years of Barack Obama?