Booman recently posted an article based on an anti-Rand Paul hit piece in “The Hill” titled “Paul faces tough road to 2016.”
He titled his own article Rand Paul Is Bombing.
Get your facts straght, Booman.
Obama is the one who is doing the bombing.
U.S. Launches Strikes Against Militants in Iraq Aug. 8, 2014
Not Rand Paul.
Rand Paul is simply trying to get elected in order to stop the bombing.
There is a big difference.
Just ask the targets.
Now…about this “The Hill” article you reference.
Read on.
All large media are owned by corporate interests. Thus all large media is based on advertising that supports the positions of those corporate interests. Advertising is stylish lying. Therefore all large media are based on promoting lies. Well-targeted lies. Those are facts, Booman. Facts of life in the Corporate-owned Empire of the United States of America. Given those facts, the only way to get an accurate idea of what is going on behind any reporting whatsoever is to ask the following magic question:
Cui bono?“
Who profits?
This can be very hard to do. Massive centrist-controlled interests…like The Hill, the medium upon which you based this post…can seem quite “neutral.” That is, they appear to report the news…political news, in the case of Politico…evenhandedly.
But…this is not always the case. In fact it is rarely the case, to be perfectly accurate. Every medium has some hustle to promote, or else it would not be funded. How to find out what that hustle is? There’s the question!
My own approach is to take a good look at the editorial pages.
Here are two screen shots of The Hill’s editorial page. I am sure that the other pages in their archives would be very similar.
This covers over 1.5 years of editorials.
Notice who and what has not been covered?
The Paulist movement and Elizabeth Warren have not been covered.
No editorials for, and none against.
Hmmmm…
Ask this question of yourself:
Which national politicians most seriously threaten the corporate center’s grip on the political system of this country?
HMMMMMmmmm….
This is media non-personing in full bloom.
That old movie line?
“Call me anything but spell my name right!”
All publicity is good publicity.
And…for the centrists…no mention of their worst enemies is usually the way to go. It worked with Ross Perot and Ron Paul, why not try it again?
Only…apparently it’s not working anymore. Not with Rand Paul it’s not.
Why an anti-Rand Paul article now?
Because his threat is growing, that’s why.
Less than a month ago we got this:
Meet the Press: Rand Paul is Republican Presidential Frontrunner
CHUCK TODD: For most of us, summer travel takes us to theme parks or beaches. For presidential wannabes, it’s anywhere they can find potential supporters. And this week was particularly buys. Chris Christie in Iowa, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren wooing progressives in Detroit. And of course Hillary Clinton finishing her book tour.
New NBC News Marist poll numbers from Iowa and New Hampshire bring good and bad news for hopefuls on both sides. Here are three key takeaways: Number one, Democrats are ready for Hillary. In head-to-head match-ups, Clinton handily leads Joe Biden in both states by 50 or more points.
And take a look at these favorable ratings just among Democrats. 89% in Iowa and a whopping 94% in New Hampshire. But as excited as Democrats are, it’s not going to be a cakewalk for her in these two swing states in a general. In head-to-head match-ups with six potential Republicans, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker and Chris Christie, the race tightened substantially. While she’s tied or leads all of them, she didn’t do any better than 51% against anybody.
The Republican that runs best against her: Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. And that’s our second key takeaway. The first term Kentucky Senator right now is the closest thing Republicans have to a 2016 frontrunner. What gives Paul that label? He has the highest favorable ratings of any potential candidate in the two states. He leads the polls in the early horserace, not including the undecided vote, and he runs best against Hillary Clinton.
—snip—
Now a hit piece that purports to show Rand Paul “running away” from confrontation. A subtle hit piece, but a hit piece nonetheless.
Some selected quotes:
Paul faces tough road to 2016
….he needs to polish his message after a series of missteps that drew local and national attention.
…he rapidly exited a lunch, still chewing, when a “DREAMer” immigration activist confronted Rep. Steve King
…he might not be as prepared to run for president as he thinks he is.
The freshman senator also had to explain a hasty retreat from a lunch table with King when a pro-immigration reform activist confronted the border hawk.
In a video that went viral, Paul bolts from the table while still chewing immediately after activist Erika Andiola confronted King. Paul’s staff says he left because of a pre-scheduled interview with reporters, but the video quickly made the rounds on late-night television.
He also faced a number of questions on gay marriage, and not everyone was satisfied with his answer that he personally opposes gay marriage but believes it shouldn’t be legislated at the federal level.
“A lot of people are concerned that he’s not coming off as authentic as his father did. The real debate among liberty folks is whether his perceived lack of authenticity is just a campaign tactic or is it something we’re going to see persist,” said Joel Kurtinitis, a former Ron Paul staffer and the outreach director of the libertarian group Liberty Iowa. “We’re really waiting for someone to take that stand the way Ron did without any backtracking or lack of sureness in his statements.”
First they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then they fight you. Then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi
Rand Paul is now important enough that he cannot be ignored. They must fight him.
The next phase?
Who knows?
“Styles make fights,” boxers say.
His father’s style didn’t work. That is…it didn’t win.
Rand Paul is still learning. He is still developing a style.
We’ll see.
Sooner or later…we’ll see.
Watch.
AG
P.S. Any Obama supporters who at this point want to start doing the anti-Rand Paul flipflop dance may as well just shut up. Supporters of a man who ran as “Peace President” and then consistently over 6+ years supported the rise of the security state, the rise of the drone state, the rise of the targeted killing state, the continuation of the pro-Israeli murder state, the rise of the Nazi regime in Kiev state and now the Iraq War II state…and bet on it, it’s just a matter of time before we will be allowed to wail over the fact that American boots are once again Afghanististaning in Iraq…those supporters don’t have shit to say about Rand Paul’s political maneuverings.