The Ron Paul Threat

My latest essay is online at EverVigilant.net:

The Ron Paul Threat

The neocons hate Ron Paul. No, "hate" isn't the right word. They loathe him. They despise him. In their minds, he is no better than a liberal Democrat or perhaps even a Muslim terrorist -- you know, because only evil people would dare to criticize President Bush's war in Iraq.

Just for fun, go to FreeRepublic.com (a.k.a., Neocon Central) and run a search for "Ron Paul." You won't find too many nice things being said about him among the recent articles and comments. Before 9/11, he was considered to be a heroic defender of the Constitution. Now, he's an America-hating crackpot who wants to surrender and turn the world over to "Islamofascists." They can't debate him on the issues, so their only recourse is to try to silence and discredit him.

A few months ago, Pajamas Media, a pro-Bush, pro-war, pro-big government blog, began a straw poll to see which potential candidates were popular among its readers. On week four, Ron Paul was the winner by a large margin. Naturally, his name was removed from the poll on week five. The official reason given for Paul's exclusion was that he "did not reach one percent on Gallup." The only logical conclusion here is that these so-called "conservative" blogs are allowing the mainstream media -- the "liberal" institution they love to hate so much -- to set the ground rules for political discussion and debate.

Click here for the full article.