Tempest In A Teapot

SATURDAY: FINANCIAL REFORM CHEAT SHEET @ ZERO HEDGE

MEANWHILE, THE CONSTITUTION SOON ON BESTSELLER LIST? NOT A MINUTE TOO SOON

PAUL FIRES BACK

THE TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT---better known as much ado about nothing---created, exascerbated and perpetuated by the likes Rachel Maddow and Company frothing at the mouth over Rand Paul's primary win for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky continues to leave me slack jawed. Of course it shouldn't. I was taught how to do this exact same thing as a liberal newspaper reporter for the big morning daily here decades ago. I saw and experienced first-hand how reporters actually create flak out of------ absolutely nothing. Especially when they have an a political ax to grind. Creating controversy outta nothing, speaking quotes out of context is oh so easy. And gullible readers eat it up like ice cream.

Anyway, I see this hysteria manufacturing over the remarks Rand Paul made on The Civil Rights Act during his hour long interview with NPR as business as usual for the MSM. He was baited then taken completely out of context. He handled it extremely well. They had to dig really deep for this ridiculous bit of hysteria. Today, I see it for what it is, a ploy used to polarized people and whip the gullible into a fearful frenzy.The political correctness Nazis are alive and well in the MSM and even some conservative websites are falling for this now (see Allapundit). Here's a portion of a piece from a Washington Times editorial this morning that I completely agree with:

The possibility that fiscal stalwarts like Dr. Paul the Younger and former Club For Growth President Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania might have the senatorial power to filibuster wasteful proposals must keep Ms. Maddow up at night. So it should not have come as a surprise that instead of a pleasant interview following his primary victory, the ascendant Dr. Paul was subjected to interrogation about how he would have voted on legislation pushed through Congress 46 years ago.

For all of its faults, the country is a better place in the wake of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The problem with Dr. Paul is that his intellectual honesty - a malady we wish would infect other politicians - would not let him overlook the faults. He rightly pointed out that if one accepts the ability of the federal government to decide that all customers must be accommodated, Congress could use the same power to force liberal restaurant owners to serve people carrying guns.

Ms. Maddow wasn't interested in logical consequences, she was interested in tarring Dr. Paul and the Tea Party movement in general as racist. Dr. Paul has never expressed an interest in revisiting any part of the Civil Rights Act. As he said in a later interview, the left should save its questions for Sen. Robert Byrd, West Virginia Democrat, who actually filibustered the bill in question and was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the old days. It's questionable why Dr. Paul expected fair treatment from the network that talked about the "racism" of a Tea Party activist who carried a gun to a rally, but took care not to show his face in the video - because that Tea Party activist was a black man.

Rand Paul has clarified that he would have voted "yes" on the 1964 bill, hopefully putting this tired and phony racism attack to rest. The vehemence of the other side's rhetoric emphasizes the importance of putting this constitutional conservative in the Senate.