Betsy Fischer, the executive producer of Meet the Press, just Tweeted that Rand Paul is trying to cancel his appearance on the show this Sunday.GOP better tread lightly here. If they complain too loudly about the Sunday shows being the mean old liberal media out to get lily white pure Rand Paul, they really are going to piss off the Village. You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger and you don't cancel on Meet The Press. Only Louis Farrakhan and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia have ever done that, and certainly no US politician running for Senate has ever told MTP to go screw themselves.
I just reached Fischer, and she tells me Paul's camp asked to cancel because "he's had a long week."
"He committed to coming on on Wednesday," Fischer tells me. "We got an email from his press secretary this afternoon saying that he wanted to cancel."
Fischer adds that the Meet crew asked to talk directly to Paul himself to ask him to reconsider, but he has yet to call back. "We're still waiting," she says.
Asked what reason the Paul camp gave for canceling, Fischer says the Meet crew was told "that he's had a long week, he's tired, and he's very sorry and he needs to cancel."
If the Republicans decide to back Paul here and go after MTP, the GOP leadership is going to be in real trouble. But if they don't take Rand Paul's side against the LIBERAL MEDIA SMEAR MACHINE!!!11! then the GOP leadership is also going to be in a lot of trouble.
Who do they fear more? My guess is the Teabaggers, so look for the usual wingers to throw NBC under the bus for picking on mean ol' Rand, just like they did with Katie Couric and Sarah Palin.
And we know how that turned out...
[UPDATE] John Cole wins the internetz with 'I Rand, I Rand So Far Away".
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7 comments:
See your friend David Weigel's argument on Rand Paul as to why you're wrong. Again.
"This is about the libertarian dream of a colorblind society, faithful to the Constitution, with as little regulation of business as possible. I'm sticking up for Rand Paul here for a couple of reasons.
-- He believes this because he despises racism and believes almost all Americans agree with him.
-- This debate is more interesting and honest than the usual slippery debate we have about race, law, and regulation.
How does Paul's opposition to racism explain his position here? He's a property-rights absolutist, and he believes property rights, and the choices of consumers, are the only constitutional remedy to discrimination against race, against disability, against anything else."
As I said, much of Paul's argument has real merit, which is more than I can say to your knee-jerk defense of a flawed law...
You forgot the rest of Dave's argument.
"Now, if you disagree, can you prove him wrong? I think you can. As Errol Louis pointed out yesterday during our appearance on "Hardball," while many libertarians believe that America is more or less colorblind, around 500 discrimination cases are filed each week."
Which is what I said yesterday: the existence of minorities in positions of power, even as President of the United States, can never disprove the existence of discrimination.
And BooMan takes Dave's defense of Rand Paul apart here.
"So far, I've focused on the question of Rand Paul's alleged racism and Weigel's defense, but Rand's ideology is flawed even if we accept his explanation at face value. The entire reason that the federal government got involved in telling private businesses not to discriminate and segregate is because the market failed to force them to do it. If forcibly segregating lunch counters was bad for business, according to the Paulist philosophy, the owners would have banded together to force the politicians to allow them to integrate their lunch counters. It didn't happen and it wasn't going to happen in the foreseeable future. That's why the federal government had to step in. "
The fact of the matter is defense of the right to segregate and discriminate based on race is only necessary if you plan to segregate and discriminate based on race.
This particular argument was lost 45 years ago, Arc. Give it up.
"The entire reason that the federal government got involved in telling private businesses not to discriminate and segregate is because the market failed to force them to do it. If forcibly segregating lunch counters was bad for business, according to the Paulist philosophy, the owners would have banded together to force the politicians to allow them to integrate their lunch counters. It didn't happen and it wasn't going to happen in the foreseeable future. That's why the federal government had to step in."
"BooMan" doesn't know his history. The free-market was forced to segregate in the South by government. For example:
Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.
These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn't comply.
These private businesses (Bus, railroad, etc) did not want to upset their best customers--which happened to be black. Government power forced them to go against their best interests (which is making PROFIT) in order to comply with the social order of the day in the South which was lawful segregation. That is the crux of Rand Paul's criticism of government intervention in private business.
Liberal's constantly claim that business seeks profit over everything, even safety (ex: BP oil spill)--yet they would have us believe that all businesses would fore-go said profit simply to discriminate? That doesn't make any logical sense and it exposes a big flaw in liberal thought.
Randall Paul is spot on.
Bullshit.
If discrimination was such a bad business decision, then why was integration needed? The fact is discrimination in the south, making things whites only, was a brilliant business decision because whites had the money and the power, and they supported businesses who did it. They more than made up for any lost business from minorities with increased business from like-minded whites.
The federal government had to step in, period.
And as for your claim that business seeks profit over everything, I'd say that in least the case of BP, that's 100% true.
So the eventual bus boycotts and the restaurant sit-ins were good for business? So empty buses were good for business? You're a real genius.
The government forced Jim Crow on businesses with disastrous financial and social results. That is as plain as day. Live with it.
And as far as BP goes. Yes, they were seeking profit, and government was in bed with them in seeking that profit--they call it "regulatory capture." So, again we see governments' hand in another disaster.
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