The American Spectator

Now that’s more like it. Daily Kos offers a liberal defense of the Jack Conway ad.

Rand Paul is trying to sell the voters of Kentucky an image of himself that doesn’t live up to his history. Liberals get the vapors anytime a Democrat throws a punch, demanding that religion be ceded exclusively to the GOP.

This race is closing, even Rasmussen sees serious tightening, and in a tough year, we can pull out a victory in crimson red Kentucky. Yet here we are wasting time and energy defending Jack Conway from liberals getting the vapors over a campaign ad that is factually true. There has probably been more liberal ink spilled on this single ad, than in all the falsehoods in Karl Rove’s bullshit ads.

I get that there is no important mission for journalists than trying to get Democrats elected, but bear with me: The implication of the ad is not true. There is absolutely zero evidence that Rand Paul is hostile to Christianity and the politically relevant fact is that he is mostly running on socially conservative positions.

First, even if it is true that Paul was different in college the fact is that was 30 years ago. Are there no middle-aged men in America whose political and religious views are different, and probably more conservative, than they were in college? Second, Paul was attending a conservative Christian college. Lots of sons of conservative fathers have had rebellious phases. George W. Bush and Franklin Graham, anyone?  (Though I can’t picture the younger Graham doing bong hits with Aqua Buddha.) It has no relevance to today, and there is no proof that Paul’s hijinks were anything more serious than youthful irreverence even back then. And he did not come from a nonreligious background: Ron Paul is a churchgoing non-Randian whose leadership team includes veterans of Pat Robertson’s 1988 presidential campaign.

But if Kos wants to go down this road, justifying this ad and attacking the liberal reporter who actually broke the story the commercial distorts, that’s fine. I just don’t want to hear any whining about Rovian tactics and the Christian right the next time a Republican runs an ad like this and subsequently wins an election.