Let me start with the fact that, barring someone even worse on the Democrat side, I do not intend to vote for Rand Paul (please, God, don\’t stick me with a Hillary/Rand contest).
Forgetting his stands on issues (I agree with some, disagree with others), Rand Paul is a first term senator with no executive experience and no foreign policy experience – a set of non-qualifications we are dreadfully suffering through right now. Moreover, I consider his father, former congressperson Ron Paul, a nut case, a racist and an anti-Semite, and I don\’t want a President who could be influenced by someone like that.
Is my rejection of Ron Paul clear enough? I would hope so.
That said, however, I loved what he has done over the past several days when various members of our wonderful “neutral” media tried to sink their teeth into his neck by asking “questions” that, in reality, were attacks – which means that, instead of answering a question he was supposed to defend himself against charges being leveled against him. Paul won\’t put up with it – as he should not.
This is very troubling to said media – a lot of them. They don\’t like politicians who fight back.
One example (in fairness, there are many more) is in today\’s Washington Post, where Katie Zezima and Vanessa Williams, have written a negative, accusatory article decrying Rand Paul\’s being defiant, prickly and testy….and that\’s just in their first two paragraphs.
Here are a few excerpts:
Less than 24 hours after Rand Paul announced his White House bid before hundreds of jubilant, flag-waving supporters, his fledgling presidential campaign seemed to be defined more by his defiant performance when the cheering stopped.
In a series of interviews after the freshman senator from Kentucky declared his candidacy on Tuesday, Paul turned prickly – briskly sidestepping tough foreign policy questions from one journalist, lecturing another on how to conduct an interview, and testily declining to clarify his position on abortion.
On Tuesday, hours after his campaign launch, Paul bristled at a question from Fox News host Sean Hannity about a 2007 comment in which he\’d dubbed the idea that Iran posed a threat to U.S. security a “ridiculous” one.
Hours later, he pushed back even harder amid similar foreign policy questions from “Today” host Savannah Guthrie.
“Before we go through a litany of things you say I\’ve changed on, why don\’t you ask me a question: \’Have I changed my opinion?\’ That would sort of be a better way to approach an interview,” Paul told the NBC journalist.
Later Wednesday, an Associated Press reporter asked Paul about possible exceptions to abortion restrictions. When the reporter persisted, Paul replied tightly: “I gave you about a five-minute answer. Put in my five-minute answer.”
Personally, the only one of these interviews I watched was the one with Today\’s Savannah Guthrie. And when he answered her as he did, I felt like standing up and cheering.
You watch an “interview” like that and realize the only reason someone like Paul would subject himself to it is that it prevents the Today people from being able to say “we offered Rand Paul a chance to give his views here, and he refused to come on the show”, which makes it sound like he was ducking issues instead of insisting that they be asked about in something remotely approaching a neutral way.
So even though I do not want to vote for you, Rand, you have my thanks for standing up to what passes for journalism these days – most especially when the target is someone to their right (which, all too often, includes all of the right, all of the center, and at least some of the left as well).
You may never see the Oval office from behind its desk, but you have struck a blow for fairness. Too bad it almost certainly fell on deaf ears.
