Profiles in Punditry

Andrew Sullivan has endorsed Ron Paul. I know he's been favoring him, probably as a knee-jerk reaction to the label "libertarian." Here's his rationale:

More than all this, he has somehow ignited a new movement of those who love freedom and want to rescue it from the do-gooding bromides of the left and the Christianist meddling of the right. The Paulites' enthusiasm for liberty, their unapologetic defense of core conservative principles, their awareness that in the new millennium, these principles of small government, self-reliance, cultural pluralism, and a humble foreign policy are more necessary than ever - no lover of liberty can stand by and not join them.

Here's Paul's record, from a post by the indispensible brian_igo at EA Forums. Take a look at Paul's legislative activity: he opposes any form of birth control or family planning, and introduced legislation at the federal level to ban it. He favors legislation defining a zygote as a person. He wants to remove the courts' ability to hear discrimination cases. He wants to repeal OSHA, opposes the minimum wage, and wants to make unions more vulnerable to decertification. He also wants to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act and the Copeland act, which apply federal labor standards to workers under government contract and prohibit kickbacks. He wants to make it harder to register to vote. He wants to repeal the bulk of antitrust laws. He favors open, legal discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities -- by constitutional amendment, no less. He wants to repeal most environmental protections, and favors an increase in offshore drilling and opening ANWR to drilling.

It goes on and on and on. This is Sullivan's "true conservative"? (Do please note that this is all legislation that Paul has introduced or co-sponsored at the federal level -- so much for "federalism.") The man's a nightmare -- the worst of the right-wing nutjobs. I seem to recall a post by Sullivan in which someone brought this record to his attention -- that was the version compiled by David Neiwert, I believe -- and he dismimssed it as "liberal whining." All this means to me is that Sullivan is willfully blind to Paul's deficits, which are many, and has no sense of what this country is really about. It amazes me that someone as fundamentally clueless as Andrew Sullivan is so influential. But then, considering what we're seeing from the Beltway insiders, maybe not.