Let me try to understand this. Rand Paul is still out complaining about the Jack Conway ad. But why doesn’t he get asked this question: He’s a bible-believing Christian. Yet before he got into the final couple months of this campaign, he was very open about being a devotee of Ayn Rand. Rand of course, in addition to being a hard-right extremist in political terms, was a confirmed atheist who was not only openly contemptuous of organized religion and Christianity but a convinced critic of the element of Christianity that most agnostics and atheists actually find redeeming: namely, altruism.
This is only one element of what a fraud Paul is. But this is reality. It’s very hard to see how you can be an (Ayn) Randian Christian.
Should Rand Paul’s private views on religion be his own business? Maybe. But why should his lying about them be off-limits? Read More
In his day Bill Clinton got demonized by the DC thumbsuckers about his aggressive, sometimes brassknuckle campaign tactics. And Mike Kinsley had the most apt take on the phenomenon: The rules of the game are that Republicans pioneer the hardball tactics and Democrats must wait until the following political cycle to use them for themselves. In other words, political rectitude is Republicans being able to do anything they want and Democrats having to play by Marquess of Queensberry rules. Or use the hardball tactics after 2 or 4 years has made them soft and ineffective. But Clinton decided to use the hardball tactics first. And that was wrong.
Needless to say, Kinsley had a way of saying this more wittily and clearly in one sentence. But that was the idea.
Put this in the category of things I would never have noticed on my own. TPM Reader KC checks in:
Not to be such a nitpicky female, but how did Christine O’Donnell’s hair go from a professional, skimming the shoulders cut in the “I am not a witch ad” to the middle of her back in the debate? Three possible options: 1) they edited it in post-production on the ad, 2) she’s currently wearing hair extensions, 3) or she actually is a witch.
Does KC have a point? Judge for yourself: Read More
Just last week over lunch with one of our reporters, I wondered aloud where Bob Perry was putting his campaign contributions this election cycle. We started looking into it, with the idea that if the Houston builder was flying under the radar this time around — unlike in 2004 when he funded Swift Boat Veterans for Truth or 2006 when he funded the Economic Freedom Foundation — it might be indicative of the changed environment legally and politically that allows so much anonymous money to be pumped into the elections this year.
As it turns out, Perry’s giving is above the radar. It shows up in FEC filings filed yesterday by the group Karl Rove helped found, American Crossroads. Perry’s contribution: a cool $7 million.
Jon Stewart to Larry King: I pick on CNN because “you’re terrible.” Watch.
I quasi-defended Christine O’Donnell the other day for her apparent Establishment Clause debate blunder. (If “she didn’t mean this stupid thing, she meant that stupid thing” counts as a defense.) Now O’Donnell is coming to her own defense:
After that debate my team and I we were literally high fiving each other thinking that we had exposed he doesn’t know the First Amendment, and then when we read the reports that said the opposite we were all like “what?”
You got him, Christine.
Bill Clinton is the Democrats’ ace in the hole, especially in parts of the country where President Obama’s own lack of popularity is a drag on Dem candidates:
The longtime NPR commentator gets the boot after comments he made on The O’Reilly Factor Monday night about Muslims.
A new TV ad from the Service Employees International Union takes a hard shot at Sharron Angle in Nevada.