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Is Rand Paul Crazier Than Anyone Else in D.C.?
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy May 29, 2010 04:28am |
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| Category | Commentary |
| Author | Conor Friedersdorf |
| Media | Magazine - Newsweek |
| News Date | Tuesday, May 25, 2010 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Forced to name the “craziest” policy favored by American politicians, I’d say the multibillion-dollar war on drugs, which no one thinks is winnable. Asked about the most “extreme,” I’d cite the invasion of Iraq, a war of choice that has cost many billions of dollars and countless innocent lives. The “kookiest” policy is arguably farm subsidies for corn, sugar, and tobacco—products that people ought to consume less, not more.
These are contentious judgments. I hardly expect the news media to denigrate the policies I’ve named, nor do I expect their Republican and Democratic supporters to be labeled crazy, kooky, or extreme. These disparaging descriptors are never applied to America’s policy establishment, even when it is proved ruinously wrong, whereas politicians who don’t fit the mainstream Democratic or Republican mode, such as libertarians, are mocked almost reflexively in these terms, if they are covered at all.
Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul is the most recent subject of these attacks. “Is Rand Paul ‘Crazy’?” asked a headline in The Week. “Rand Paul may not be a racist, but he is an extremist,” Ezra Klein wrote in The Washington Post. “The newest Washington parlor game is coming up with wacky questions to ask Rand Paul about his worldview,” noted Robert Schlesinger, opinion editor of U.S. News & World Report. |
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