The amount of ink spilled by so-called liberal and progressive sites such as Alternet, Think Progress, The Nation, Salon, etc. in the running of articles critical of Ron Paul has reached an exaggerated, overblown, and ridiculous level when compared with his standing in the race.
I like Ron Paul as I’ve discussed on my blog many times specifically for his foreign policy positions and stand against the drug war but I’m the first to admit he will never be president especially if he sticks with the Republican Party.
However, when one considers the number of articles critical of him on these so-called lib progressive sites, it would seem like he is the front runner. When you compare the number of articles criticizing Paul with the number of articles criticizing Romney, Gingrich, Santorum etc. who have an equal and in Romney’s case much better chance of being the Republican presidential nominee it boggles the mind.
The obvious reason for this is to attempt to scare away those of a leftward persuasion from drifting towards Paul due to his stands on US militarism, civil liberties, the drug war etc. Of course, the big reason this drifting is happening isn’t due so much to the attractiveness of Paul’s ideas as it is to the complete failure of President Obama to stand up for these ideals even to give them the barest defense instead we have a president sending troops into Yemen, Uganda, Nigeria, signing the bill on indefinite detention, not closing Guantanamo Bay despite promises, continuing the drug war crackdown.
So this can be seen as an attempt to scare these voters back to Obama despite his being worse on these issues than Paul.
However, if I can play armchair psychiatrist for a moment, I would like to offer another reason.
Like the battered wife who projects her anger with her abusive husband on the men she has future relationships with, I feel many of these liberal/progressive sites are projecting their angry disappointment with Obama onto Paul. They know Obama has failed and they know that if he is re-elected (highly likely I would say at this point) he will continue to disappoint. But instead of getting behind another candidate to mount a primary challenge to the president to force his hand on these issues he should be supporting anyway, they have decided to take out their frustrations on Paul a distant shot at the presidency from another party but who is better on several core issues than the Democrat president.
It is petty. It is sad. It is part of human nature. It does not bode well for the future of America.
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