The way we liberal rubes get played!

THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

Intimations of what Rand Paul said: We know, we know—we already wrote about Joan Walsh today.

Still, we thought her piece about Cliven Bundy and Rand Paul was an instant, appalling classic.

Yesterday, Bundy offered some rather under-baked thoughts concerning forty million of his fellow citizens. This morning, Joan moved in.

We were struck by the things she said about Rand Paul. Every liberal gets to decide if he or she wants to be treated this way.

Joan was snorting and yelling again, as she constantly does in her new incarnation. Forget her remarks about Bundy himself, the easiest target in the west. Consider the things she says, or doesn’t quite say, about the vile Senator Paul:

WALSH (4/24/14): Surprise! Sean Hannity’s hero, whose cause has been embraced by Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada and Rand Paul of Kentucky along with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, turns out to be an old-time Republican racist, the kind that even Jonathan Chait recognizes, and Fox News and the GOP have a problem.

Until now I’ve ignored Bundy because he’s an extremist and a freak, and even Glenn Beck has denounced him. I was reluctant to use him against the GOP. But as he’s gotten support from the likes of Paul and Perry, two respected 2016 candidates, plus regular backing from Hannity and Nevada Sen. Heller, he’s become a huge problem for the right.

[...]

Asked about Bundy’s virulently racist remarks by the Times, Rand Paul was “not available for immediate comment.” What courage. At least Dean Heller’s office immediately condemned the “appalling and racist statements.” Here’s a tip for Rand Paul: You’re a libertarian. Give your staff the liberty to tell the media you abhor racist comments, even if you’re not around. (Update: Paul released a statement condemning Bundy’s remarks Thursday morning.)

It was only yesterday—literally—that National Journal was telling us that Paul was now the leading Republican tackling issues of poverty and race, after Paul Ryan stumbled, having pretended to care about the poor while his budget slashed programs that help them to give tax cuts to the rich. Unfortunately, as “Rand Paul’s Compassionate Conservatism” was being published, Paul was talking to Fox’s Megyn Kelly and blaming Chicago’s recent spate of violence on “thuggishness” and the inability of Chicago’s thugs to distinguish between “right and wrong.”

Let’s face it: Paul’s been a better ally to Cliven Bundy than to the inner-city poor. I’m not saying he would endorse Bundy’s remarks about “Negroes”; he knows better than that. At least I think he does. But culturally and politically, he’s quicker to empathize with the lawbreaker in Nevada than those thugs in Chicago.

[...]

Here’s hoping that Rand Paul denounces Bundy’s remarks early Thursday. It won’t change the sad fact that way too many people who think like Paul politically think like Bundy racially.

According to those passages, Bundy has “gotten support from” Rand Paul. Even worse, Paul has “embraced Bundy’s cause.”

Do you notice Joan offering any quotations to that effect by Paul? As we said, every liberal can decide if he or she wants to get played in these ways.

As she continues, Walsh snarks at Paul for “condemning Bundy’s remarks Thursday morning.” Her piece condemning Bundy’s remarks also appeared Thursday morning.

In that next paragraph, Walsh brilliantly cherry-picks Paul’s varied remarks to Megyn Kelly this Tuesday night. She does manage to quote four words, one of which is “and.”

(For the record, we don’t think we've ever referred to people as “thugs.” But the “thugs” to whom Paul briefly referred had shot and killed people in Chicago that weekend.)

In the penultimate quoted paragraph, we’re told that Paul has been “an ally to” Bundy. Joan says she thinks that Paul knows better than to endorse Bundy’s pitiful racial remarks.

In the last quoted paragraph, Joan’s Wisconsin background really came shining through. We get the famous, and very familiar, guilt by association.

We’re sorry, but this is the very familiar work of a very familiar type of figure. It’s truly puzzling to us that Walsh has descended this far.

That said, if you read the comments to Walsh’s post, including the long string of Mormon-hating remarks, you will see that Salon is creating an impressive tribe of low-IQ, pseudo-liberal cretins.

Walsh slimes Paul every step of the way, never quite managing to quote any of his actual statements. Why didn’t she offer the actual quotes in which Paul “embraces Bundy’s cause?”

The answer should be completely obvious, even to tribals like us.

Joan is just conning the rubes once again. Here is an anthropological fact, a fact about our human race:

Our ditto-heads, like their ditto-heads, seem to adore getting conned.