Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani and Double Standards

The Ron-Paul-Is-A-Closet-Nazi meme continues. It seems to me that there are a lot of reasons to oppose Ron Paul. Jamie Kirchick's vision of US foreign policy is one of them. But to say that a single $500 contribution from a neo-Nazi crackpot is somehow "keeping company" with fascists is absurd. Michael Goldfarb asks:

Andrew, are you not troubled at all by the creeps who've signed on to the Paul campaign, or the fact that he is so completely unperturbed by their support that he has yet to distance himself in any way from it? Maybe not--Sullivan's "simple message" to Ron Paul supporters: "You're welcome here." That includes the Nazis, or no?

There are plenty of reasons to be perturbed when loons and hate-mongers support a candidacy. But this game of guilt-by-association can be played endlessly. I tend to place greater emphasis on loons and hate-mongers that candidates actively seek out. Pat Robertson is a loon and an anti-Semite and a vicious homophobe who blamed Americans for 9/11. Giuliani didn't receive some unsolicited money from him; he actually stood on a platform and embraced him. Why one standard for Paul and another for Giuliani? If Obama embraced Louis Farrakhan as a supporter, you think Goldfarb and Kirchick would be silent? They'd have a cow because it's unthinkable. But naked bigotry is more than thinkable in today's GOP: it's integral to it. What's the difference between Farrakhan and Robertson? I can't see any. Maybe Goldfarb and Kirchick can spell it out.

Giuliani also promoted and endorsed a seriously mobbed up man to be head of the DHS; he fully embraces and employs a priest credibly accused of sex abuse of a minor (and refuses to distance himself from him); and actively endorses torture as a foreign policy weapon. Jamie Kirchick actually supports Giuliani for president - but is hyper-ventilating about a $500 check that Paul hasn't even decided what to do with! There you have the massive double-standards on the neocon right.

Here's an idea: when Giuliani disowns his abusing priest, his mafia-consigliere and his anti-Semitic nutcase, Ron Paul should send back the $500. Deal?

(Photo: Win McNamee/Getty.)