The Rand Paul/Civil Rights Act controversy

Liberals and conseratives alike are all over the story of Rand Paul’s position on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he reaffirmed last night on MSDNC’s Rachel Maddow program.

In a nutshell, Paul pretty much takes the position Barry Goldwater did on it, a position which helped him lose the presidential election. Which, of course, has the liberals jumping on the “raaaccist” accusation bandwagon all over again in true predictable fashion (just like they did in 1964), and which also has absolutist libertarians arguing back and forth with pragmatic conservative Republicans on federal/states/individual rights. Yeehaa.

There are a couple of really good posts out there about this story from Dr. James Joyner and Another Black Conservative, which I won’t add anything to except to say that I figured it wouldn’t take long for the MSM to suck the ‘purist’ Rand Paul into a philosophical debate, but I didn’t know they’d go reach back 50 years for the subject matter.

Even though I’m not a Rand Paul supporter, for reasons I mentioned here, I’ll defend him against this type of “gotcha” journalism that permeates the airwaves, especially on liberal news outlets. All too often in politics, perception in reality and right now – as I figured would happen prior to Rand Paul’s winning the KY primary – the media is setting the “raaacist, nutcase” narrative about him because he’s an easy target being the son of a fruit loop Republican Congressman from TX whose ideas on domestic policy have merit but whose foolish, idealistic, unrealistic beliefs on foreign policy ignore the complex realities of today’s world.

Until Rand Paul, an unseasoned politico (which was part of his appeal), can get a handle on this narrative and turn it around and move beyond it – focusing on issues of importance in 2010, the MSM will continue to have their way in painting a vastly distorted picture of him until the KY Tea Partiers will be able to do little else but hold a bonfire with those tea leaves after Paul loses in November.

It’s gonna be a long summer.

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