Ron Paul's Negative Ad Blitz

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The combined effect of Ron Paul's campaign commercials and the attacks ads released by his supporters is making for a blistering day of negative campaigning. From South Carolina to New Hampshire, ads targeting everyone from Mitt Romney to Rick Santorum to Rick Perry to John Huntsman are blanketing the states.

In South Carolina, CNN reports that Paul's campaign is "flooding ... mailboxes with a letter calling Newt Gingrich a 'counterfeit conservative.'" The five-page mailing also rips Perry's immigration record, Mitt Romney's abortion volte-face and his advocacy for "state-run health care." But Gingrich's treatment is by far the worst:

Newt Gingrich has a long record of liberal appeasement, flip-flopping on key issues, and lobbying for insider millions. I have rarely seen a candidate who represents so much of what is wrong with Washington and what is wrong with our political system.

On a humorous note, Paul's super PAC Endorse Liberty has unveiled a slew of satirical web videos featuring actors impersonating Romney, Santorum, Gingrich and Perry, reports The Washington Post. The most bruising impersonation is of Santorum who's depicted as a trigger-happy war-monger. “Any person, place or thing — any noun, really — that starts with an ‘I’ sound is an enemy to American Exceptionalism and should be nuked,” the fake Santorum says. “That means you, Ikea. You’re next.” Of the four ads, the impersonation for Romney, with its stop-and-start cadence and head bobbing, is probably the most dead-on. (See all four here)

On an uglier note, a group of Ron Paul supporters (or Ron Paul saboteurs) released an ad attacking Huntsman on Thursday that both Huntsman and Paul have denounced today. Of the series of cheap shots, the ad takes aim at Huntsman's adopted daughter:

The web ad from the group, New Hampshire Liberty 4 Ron Paul, takes aim at Huntsman's ambassadorship in China, his ability to speak Mandarin, and even his adopted daughter, Gracie Mei, who is Chinese. The spot closes with an image of Huntsman dressed as China's communist leader Mao Zedong.

The ad was created by an outfit called "New Hampshire Liberty 4 Paul" but as The Huffington Post's Sam Stein notes "The group has no other discernable online presence, the YouTube account was created on Jan. 4, and has posted only the single video -- all of which points to some ad hoc effort and not an actual campaign product."

In an interview with CNN, Paul denounced the ad. "Of course I disavow him and he shouldn't do it, because you have one out of how many, a couple hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, I don't know how many people we have, because one does that, to bring that up just doesn't sound like a fair thing to do," he said. "Of course I denounce it, I couldn't even hear it, haven't looked at it, but people do that, and they do it in all campaigns."

Then of course there was the errant tweet sent out from Ron Paul's Twitter account during the night of the Iowa caucuses, which rather humorously bashed Huntsman's meager performance.

@JonHuntsman we found your one Iowa voter, he's in Linn precinct 5 you might want to call him and say thanks.
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) January 4, 2012

Though some have described Paul's quixotic run for the presidency as a mere soapbox to air his libertarian views, it's clear he's willing to get in the mud and take on his opponents like any other serious campaign for the White House.

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Richard Ben-Veniste on the uncanny parallels between the scandal he investigated and the controversy over the White House’s alleged links to Russia

Watching the national controversy over the White House and Russia unfold, I’m reminded of Karl Marx’s oft-quoted observation: “History repeats itself: first as tragedy, second as farce.” I was a close witness to the national tragedy that was Richard Nixon’s self-inflicted downfall as president, and I’ve recently contemplated whether a repeat of his “Saturday Night Massacre” may already be in the offing. Given how that incident doomed one president, Trump would do well to resist repeating his predecessor’s mistakes—and avoid his presidency’s descent into a quasi-Watergate parody.

The massacre began when Nixon gave the order to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, a desperate effort to prevent him from hearing tape-recorded evidence that proved the White House’s involvement in a conspiracy to obstruct the investigation of a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters. Nixon’s misuse of executive power backfired, immediately costing him two highly respected members of his administration: Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckelshaus, who both resigned rather than follow Nixon’s directive. Third in command at the Justice Department was Solicitor General Robert Bork, who agreed to do the dirty deed and fired Cox.