Ayn Rand Rises Again

Who's next? Gordon Gekko?

As the economy crumbles, the usual cultural indicators of panic are on the rise--gun sales, survivalist talk and, of course, interest in the last century's loony goddess of selfishness.

"Ayn Rand," the Wall Street Journal reports, "died more than a quarter of a century ago, yet her name appears regularly in discussions of our current economic turmoil. Pundits including Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli urge listeners to read her books, and her magnum opus, 'Atlas Shrugged,' is selling at a faster rate today than at any time during its 51-year history."

The message of that turgid 1200-page opus, that money is the root of all good, has inspired those who need justification for extreme selfishness and for looking down at the rest of humanity as “looters” and “moochers.”

When it was first published, "Atlas Shrugged" was derided by both the right and left, but over the years, a few acolytes like Alan Greenspan and Ron Paul (who named his son Rand) have risen to prominence.

Now that Greenspan has helped devastate the economy, the president of the Rand Institute is proposing that only more of the same will save it:

"Why do we accept the budget-busting costs of a welfare state? Because it implements the moral ideal of self-sacrifice to the needy. Why do so few protest the endless regulatory burdens placed on businessmen? Because businessmen are pursuing their self-interest, which we have been taught is dangerous and immoral...

"The message is always the same: 'Selfishness is evil; sacrifice for the needs of others is good.' But Rand said this message is wrong--selfishness, rather than being evil, is a virtue."

For those who can tolerate such stuff, reading "Atlas Shrugged" is punishment enough. At least Gordon Gekko with his message of "Greed is good" in Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" was an entertaining son-of-a-bitch who did not offer himself as an exemplar of a higher morality.

Ron Paul's Pure Pork

Even Fox News thinks he's "having his cake and eating it too" by giving constituents more earmark money than any member of Congress, but Ron Paul insists it's all in the name of his libertarian beliefs.

It's "like a tax credit," he explains about the $73 million for his district. "And I vote for all tax credits, no matter how silly they might seem. If I can give you any of your money back, I vote for it. So, if I can give my district any money back, I encourage that.

"But, because the budget is out of control, I haven't voted for an appropriation in years--if ever."

Paul, who insists that John McCain is just "grandstanding" in his opposition to pork, was then asked "who proposes the bridge or the highway or the school? How does that even get in there?"

"I have no idea," says the Congressman who has deeply felt ideas about everything else. "But the most important thing is to have transparency."

Is that clear?

Hearing Voices: GOP Fever Dreams

In this national nightmare, it's hard to tell if all the voices we hear are real or the products of overheated imaginations.

Was that the new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele saying yesterday that the Obama stimulus plan was "laughable" and that the economic mess is only "about 18 months old. The reality of it is, Bush inherited a recession. He got us through that recession”?

Could that have been Ron Paul, back from the media dead, grousing about three Senate Republicans who "caved in and went with the Democrats"?

In a ghostly YouTube video, Paul is his old cranky self about both parties: "It's like they're born-again budget conservatives. Where were we in the past eight years, when we could have done something...So we can't blame the Democrats for the conditions we have. We have to blame both parties and presidents of the last several decades to have generated this huge government."

Paul wants the economy stimulated privately. "We need a lot more spending," he says with his usual grip on reality, "but it has to be done by market forces, by individuals, by businesses making proper decisions."

And off in the distance, another Texas Republican is crowing about terrorist tactics on the stimulus bill. According to the Washington Post, Rep. Pete Sessions "suggested last week that the party is learning from the disruptive tactics of the Taliban, and the GOP these days does have the bravado of an insurgent band that has pulled together after a big defeat to carry off a quick, if not particularly damaging, raid on the powers that be."

It's not unusual for patients in critical condition to be ranting, but the Republicans may want to set up an isolation ward to keep all this sad stuff from being overheard.

Pursuing Palin, Shunning Ron Paul

It would be restful if, along with Joe the Plumber, John McCain's running mate just went off into a disposable-celebrity waste basket along with the other used Kleenex of the campaign, but Sarah Palin and the idea of her are still with us, as Andrew Sullivan so cogently points out today:

"That the Palin absurdity should follow the two-term presidency of another individual utterly out of his depth in national government is particularly troubling; 46 percent of Americans voted for the possibility of this blank slate as president because she somehow echoed their own sense of religious or cultural 'identity'. Until we figure out how this happened, we will not be able to prevent it from happening again."

Promoting an over-aged cheerleader with no political substance whatsoever for 2012, as William Kristol and others are doing, is a sign that the diaper division of the Republican Party has no interest in going back to its Goldwater-William F. Buckley roots and offering principled opposition to the new Democratic majority.

Palin's ascension is highlighted by the decline and fall of Ron Paul who, in his own idiosyncratic way, identified some of the issues that his party should be considering and debating. As Paul now writes:

"In the rise and fall of the recent Republican reign of power these past decades, the goal of the party had grown to be only that of gaining and maintaining power--with total sacrifice of the original Republican belief in shrinking the size of government."

Instead, the GOP focus is on Palin's "star quality" and her media blitz this week to make GOP true believers forget how her vast emptiness and arrogance helped bring down John McCain's campaign.

McCain Mutinies

Before he is anointed by the Republican convention this summer, John McCain's legendary temper will be tested by a swarm of stings from both Left and Right.

Not only do Arianna Huffington and a pair of "West Wing" actors claim he told them he didn't vote for Bush in 2000 and Senate Democrats insist he considered switching parties, McCain is still not free of doubts about his Conservative conversion emanating from admirers of Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Mike Huckabee.

The Los Angeles Times reports that "the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in St. Paul at the beginning of September."

In addition, former Congressman Bob Barr, who led the outcry for Bill Clinton's impeachment, is looking for the Libertarian nomination this fall, another potential outlet for Far Right unhappiness.

To top it off, Robert Novak, the master of Republican intrigue, reports McCain "has a problem of disputed dimensions with a vital component of the conservative coalition: evangelicals...These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as 'God's candidate' for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee's course.

"Huckabee's announced support of McCain is unequivocal, and he is regarded in the McCain camp as a friend and ally. But credible activists are spreading the word that Huckabee secretly allies himself with the bitter-end opposition."

As the Democrats sort themselves out in a bid for unity, McCain is having his own problems in that regard, and his anger-management skills may be sorely tested in the coming weeks.

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq

Exit polls tomorrow night will undoubtedly show voters went into the booths worried about health care, home foreclosures, job security and other fallout from an impending recession.

Their concerns are understandable, but they may want to recall that a little over a year ago, in November 2006, their ballots gave control of Congress to Democrats with a mandate to stop the war in Iraq.

That did not happen and since then voters have been lulled by an Imperial President, using Gen. Petraeus as a human shield, into forgetting that American deaths there now total 3,945 at a cost to taxpayers exceeding $10 billion a month.

All the Republican candidates, except Ron Paul, are in favor of continuing to do that.

As for the Democrats, in 2002, I wrote to Sen. Hillary Clinton pleading with her not to give George W. the power to invade Iraq and warning that, if she did, I would never vote for her for any office. Tomorrow I will keep that promise.

A Mel Brooks Presidential Debate

Like the finale of "Blazing Saddles," last night's Republican brawl broke through the fourth wall and spilled over onto the sets of other movies.

John McCain and Mitt Romney played their Western shootout against a backdrop of "Air Force One," while being watched by "The Terminator" sitting next to the 100-year-old lady from "Titanic," smiling sweetly as all the candidates pledged their fealty to the ghost of The Gipper.

Anderson Cooper seemed awestruck by having an actual Reagan relic on the table in front of him, a leather-bound diary from which he solemnly quoted to the Republican hopefuls.

The scene could have used some Mel Brooks pizzazz, but it made up with non-sequiturs what was lacking in wit.

Ron Paul had the best line of the night. Watching McCain and Romney grapple over who was most patriotically devoted to prolonging the killing in Iraq, Paul looked at them deadpan and said, "Silly."

Hilarious, if you like zany comedy that makes you want to cry.

News From the Alternate Universe

At the gates of the Republican debate last night, there is a heavenly choir to greet the messengers at the podium, who proceed to bring down the wrath of Reagan on the congregation.

Fred Thompson calls out Mike Huckabee as an apostate Democrat who would mislead true believers into charity for undocumented immigrants, closing Guantanamo and making smoking illegal.

Mitt Romney chides John McCain for saying some jobs would not be coming back to Michigan, the equivalent of swearing in Republican church.

Rudy Giuliani seems to be undergoing yet another sinner's conversion, intoning Reagan more often than 9/11 and disputing McCain's claim to be the only one on the stage who foresaw the glory of the Surge.

They all roll their eyes at Ron Paul, the village zealot who preaches economic doom if we keep giving alms to Israel and the Arabs instead of cultivating our own gardens.

It's a Reagan revival meeting and, although there are no miraculous cures for the politically lame and blind, the tent is filled with holy fervor from the converted, who are soliciting love offerings at the ballot box to keep Democrats from doing the Devil's work in South Carolina.

Running in Place

Thursday night we will finally have some numbers, but will they tell us anything about where this bizarre election race is going?

Duration aside, the sight of more than a dozen people running for the White House this past year has seemed more an exercise in attrition than a political marathon--candidates huffing and puffing on treadmills, some falling off (Giuliani) and then climbing back on (McCain and Edwards), some watching each step carefully (Clinton and Romney) while others flaunt their freshness by picking up the pace (Huckabee and Obama). Fred Thompson strolls at the lowest setting, and Ron Paul runs around outside the gym, cussing out the machines.

But is any of this getting them--or us--anywhere? The rapid rise and fall of poll numbers suggests that, instead of choosing, voters are still shopping around and changing their minds as they watch and wait for someone to get off the track to nowhere and head in a direction that inspires them to follow.

Unless some of the candidates start taking such risks instead of pandering to their bases, they will keep running in circles until we finally pick a president out of exhaustion rather than with hope for the future.

Dr. Paul Wants to Amputate

If you consulted Ron Paul as a doctor, you would be lucky to leave with all your limbs. The man is not an incrementalist. Cut out the income tax, he told Tim Russert on Meet the Press today, bring home our troops from everywhere and, with only a few caveats, Dr. Paul doesn't see much more value in the FBI, CIA, public schools and Social Security than tonsils or the appendix.

But the man who raised $19 million in two months is no crackpot. He has clearly tapped into a vein of voter discontent, and his opposition to US military and fiscal over-involvement all over the world deserves serious consideration.

Yet Paul's arguments come wrapped in a dogmatic personality with impatience about detail and with anyone who questions contradictions in his record. He insisted Russert was "confused" when asked about the apparent contradiction between Paul's theories and all the pork he collects for his district. "I vote against it," he said, "but that's the system."

Paul seems to find Mike Huckabee's sudden ascent galling and, while hedging his "fascism" response to the new front runner's commercial with the cross, complained about a general "softer fascism: loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military industrial complex, you have the medical industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars. That's where the control is. I call that a soft form of fascism, something that is very dangerous."

Ron Paul sounds like a right-leaning Ralph Nader, and it remains to be seen if, in the Republican primaries or as an independent candidate, he exerts as much influence on the outcome of next year's elections as Nader did in taking votes from Al Gore and electing Bush in 2000.

Huckabee's Cross

Say whatever else you will about him, Ron Paul has a sensitive antenna for oppressive government. So what are we to make of his remark that the Mike Huckabee commercial with a floating cross in the background reminds him "of what Sinclair Lewis once said--when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross?"

Paul was referring, of course, to Lewis' 1935 novel, "It Can't Happen Here," about America taken over by a right-wing evangelist. The Congressman tends to hyperbole in seeing threats to individual freedom, but Huckabee seems to be unsettling some less sensitive Republicans as well.

In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan writes about the ad: "Only on second look did I see the white lines of the warmly lit bookcase, which formed a glowing cross. Someone had bothered to remove the books from that bookcase, or bothered not to put them in. Maybe they would have dulled the lines.

"Is there a word for 'This is nice' and 'This is creepy'? For that is what I felt. This is so sweet-appalling."

Noonan sums up her ambivalence: "Does Mr. Huckabee understand that his approach is making people uncomfortable? Does he see himself as divisive? He's a bright man, so it's hard to believe he doesn't...

"Could he win the nomination? Who knows? It's all a bubbling stew on the Republican side, and no one knows who'll float to the top. In an interview this week...Mr. Huckabee said people everywhere were coming to him and saying, 'We are claiming Isaiah 54 for you, that the weapons formed against you will not prosper.'

"Prayer is powerful. But Huckabee's critics say he's a manipulator with a mean streak and little knowledge of the world. And Isaiah 54 doesn't say anything about self-inflicted wounds."

If Republicans are this uncomfortable this soon with their preacher pol, how would he fare in a general election? With all the questions about Hillary Clinton, electability may turn out to be the issue for both parties.

Another F.D.R.?

As the Ron Paul rebellion bubbles up on the Internet, there are increasing signs of Big Media discontent as well.

Today Paul Krugman in the New York Times proclaims, "Anyone who thinks that the next president can achieve real change without bitter confrontation is living in a fantasy world." This leads him to criticize Barack Obama (yet again) as naïve and "out of touch with the strong populist tide running in America right now."

Krugman's alternative is John Edwards, who is portraying himself as "another F.D.R.--a polarizing figure, the object of much hatred from the right, who nonetheless succeeded in making big changes."

If Edwards is the answer, what's the question? He may not be as weird as Ron Paul, but his windmill-tilting is much less sincere. Paul's country-doctor ethic comes from a lifetime of bedrock distrust of government power. Edwards is a negligence lawyer who milked the system for millions, spent one undistinguished term in the Senate and, only when he hit the campaign trail, started posing as the friend of the poor.

For those old enough to respond to Krugman's F.D.R. analogy, try Huey Long.

Ron Paul Money Bombs

In 2004, Howard Dean was an Internet meteor flashing briefly across the political sky. Ron Paul is beginning to look like a new planet.

Yesterday his supporters broke their own record by raising $6 million to celebrate the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Last month, on Guy Fawkes Day, they collected $4.3 million in 24 hours.

What's going on here? Howard Dean was a spontaneous expression of Americans turning against the war in Iraq. Ron Paul is an uprising against everything government does, prompting an explosion of money on the anniversaries of dumping ships' cargoes and trying to blow up legislative bodies.

Chief fundraiser for the Paul insurrection is a college dropout who subsists on junk food and has never voted but was so distressed by the Democratic Congress' failure to get US troops out of Iraq that he has put his digital know-how into backing the only Republican who wants to do it.

"I know my tax dollars are being used to kill people," Trevor Lyman says. "It makes me feel horrible."

As Ron Paul goes his eccentric libertarian way, there is no knowing what he will do with the money, aside from running commercials that may lift his Presidential candidacy into low double digits in some primaries.

What's clear is that the intensity of anger with the status quo this season is rising above Nader and Perot levels. Throwing money at Ron Paul is a more benign expression than heaving casks of tea or bombs, but where do the 21st century revolutionaries go from there?

Family Gathering

The Presidential candidates are beginning to look like relatives who came for the holidays and stayed too long.

At first it was just going to be the kids--Hillary, Barack, Rudy with his newest wife, and John, if he wasn't on one of his trips to Iraq. But then all kinds of kin you invite but don't expect to come started showing up.

Nephew Mitt drove up with a dog on the car roof, told all kinds of stories about where he'd been and got into a beef with Rudy about the people who were doing the yard work.

Great-uncle Fred arrived late and went up to the guest room for a long nap.

Cousin Mike came in from the cold and started eating everybody's lunch.

After Barack got reclusive Aunt Oprah to show up for appetizers, Hillary called Chelsea and her mother, and the old homestead started filling up like the Marx brothers' stateroom.

Somewhere in the attic, Ron Paul is checking his e-mail on a laptop, and who knows what all those distant relatives are yakking about in the basement?

It's great to have a big family, but how long are they all going to hang around?

Ron Paul and Ross Perot

There is an eerie déjà vu to the sight of another Texan with the same initials crossing a Clinton's path to the White House as Ross Perot did in 1992.

News that Ron Paul raised more than $4million on the Internet the other day recalls Perot's surge in the polls back then, at one point running ahead of both the first George Bush and Bill Clinton.

Perot's erratic on-again off-again campaign as an Independent faltered but still drew over 19 million votes, reflecting unhappiness with the two major parties and politics as usual.

Four Presidential elections later, after Clinton and another Bush in the Oval Office, that disaffection has led to the odd sight of another maverick Texan drawing support, this time in the race for the Republican nomination.

Paul's surge reflects a mixed bag of discontent--with the plastic Republican front runners and their failure to call for getting out of Iraq, as he does; with politicians of both parties who hem, haw and hedge about issues, as he does not; with the linear nature of political discourse, which Paul's digital supporters have rejected and imaginatively left behind and, according to some, distorted.

All this makes good political theater to enliven the long, boring slog of an overheated campaign, but older observers may be put off by Paul's oversimplifications and nostalgia for an America-that-never was and troubled by his roots in the conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society.

Perot turned out to be an egotistical clown without staying power, but Ron Paul has been around for a long time and is not likely to fade away. It's time to stop finding him refreshing and take a closer look at what he is really offering.

Send Out the Clowns

Mike Gravel didn't make the cut for last night's Democratic debate for failure to meet NBC's "fundraising and polling requirements" but Ron Paul apparently was viable enough ratings-wise to appear with Jay Leno last night.

"There's probably a risk I could win," Dr. Paul told him, but not against Stephen Colbert, according to a new poll that shows the Comedy Central star outpolling him among Republicans and drawing more votes from Democrats than Denis Kucinich.

In his uphill battle with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama has been complaining that the polls up to now have been more about name recognition than political substance.

He may have a point. In the 2003 California recall election, when there were 135 candidates, a well-dressed young man with an attaché case was interviewed on network TV. "I'm going to vote for the coolest name on the ballot," he said with a straight face.

Arnold Schwarzenegger won. He had announced his candidacy to Jay Leno.

The Faithful Choose Romney?

Fred Thompson told Christian conservatives at their Value Voters rally that, right after being inaugurated, he would “go in the Oval Office and close the door and pray for the wisdom to know what was right.”

Judging from the straw poll taken there, many of the most devout would be praying, too. God knows that most non-believers would be on their knees if the offhand, careless and seemingly senile actor/politician became President, ready to invade Iran and do who-knows-what to the Constitution.

The Democrats in this long pre-season have been uninspiring, to say the least, but the Republican field broke all records for smarm in wooing what they consider their Base this weekend.

In the end, it was Mitt Romney, the flip-flopper, who won their votes if note their hearts, closely followed by the preacher Mike Huckabee, who trumped all by saying, “I come today as one not who comes to you, but as one who comes from you. You are my roots.”

In the hall, most of the audience voted for Huckabee, but Romney’s campaign workers may have used Mammon to get enough supporters online to give their Mormon a narrow victory, with Ron Paul placing third and Thompson fourth.

The unreality of it all was highlighted by Rudy Giuliani, who is leading in all the national polls, finishing in eighth place behind Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and Sam Brownback, who has dropped out of the race.

In this Presidential race, the issue of faith may be taking some funny turns.

Newt Is Not Running

The reason is simple: The job isn't big enough.

Newt Gingrich’s decision not to pursue the presidency was announced today by a spokesman who explained the former Speaker will deal with “the challenges America faces and finding solutions to those challenges” as chairman of his tax-exempt organization instead.

It’s not that the White House isn’t a pleasant place to live with good perks, but Gingrich would have to give up his tax-free empire, his think tank, his Fox News contract as a commentator, the $40,000 speaking gigs and so much more he now enjoys without all the headaches of actually doing something.

In addition, if Newt had decided to go for it, there would have been pesky reporters asking about his shutting down the government in 1995, impeaching Bill Clinton for office sex while carrying on his own affair and, later, having to pay a $300,000 fine by the House ethics committee.

All that plus the travel, the hand-shaking, the debating with the likes of Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo would have been degrading to a visionary.

Actually, "the presidency is a minor post on the scale of change I'm describing," Gingrich explained to the Washington Post in July.

Instead he will follow the example of Benjamin Franklin. “He didn't think he was less than Washington or Jefferson,” Gingrich the historian explains. “He was deliberately eclectic and deliberately complex, and happy to be so.

“He was pretty interesting. If you had told him, 'If you could have been simple, you could have been president,' he would have said, 'That's pretty stupid.'"

No one will ever accuse Newt Gingrich of being simple.

Fred Thompson's Iffy Entrance

He is finally ready for his close-up. After the longest throat-clearing in election history, Fred Thompson has announced he will announce his candidacy next Thursday--by webcast, thereby postponing a little longer the tawdry business of personal appearances and pressing the flesh.

Up to now, Thompson’s “Wag the Dog” campaign has been working well enough to push him into second place in the polls behind Rudy Giuliani without saying much of anything. The few times he has proferred platitudes at rubber-chicken dinners, the applause was not deafening.

Now he is going to have to answer tiresome questions about his past lobbying, his relaxed work ethic and his young wife’s campaign-managing. He will have stand next to the Republican pygmies in debates and trade zingers with the likes of Ron Paul. If he flubs his lines in stump speeches, there won’t be any retakes.

There is a long tradition of movie actors blowing it in live theater. Thompson may regret stepping out from emoting for the cameras and taking his chances with live audiences who may hiss and boo or, worst of all, yawn.