The swiftboat like smear machine against Glenn Greenwald goes into high gear. Who's next?

[coalition_unwilling]

78. This seems to be the central core of Greenwald's argument at issue:

"Whatever else one wants to say, it is indisputably true that Ron Paul is the only political figure with any sort of a national platform — certainly the only major presidential candidate in either party — who advocates policy views on issues that liberals and progressives have long flamboyantly claimed are both compelling and crucial. The converse is equally true: the candidate supported by liberals and progressives and for whom most will vote — Barack Obama — advocates views on these issues (indeed, has taken action on these issues) that liberals and progressives have long claimed to find repellent, even evil."

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/

I think you and many other critics of Greenwald are (perhaps inadvertently) constructing a red herring about Greenwald's thesis, the easier to knock it over. Well, maybe you and others will reply that I'm examining Greenwald through rose-colored glasses. I hold no warrant for Paul. He is the consummate flim-flam artist, as DUer ProSense has been at pains to illustrate these past couple days. And behind Paul's flim-flammery lies not some calculating Nixonian Machiavellianism (as odious as that might be) but, rather, the beady-eyed glint of insanity.

Within that frame of clinical insanity that Paul and the rest of the Republican cohort save Huntsman and (arguably) Romney manifest, I can agree with Greenwald but still say, with no sense that I am selling out or turning my back on my principles, that I support Obama. Because I do not want those crazy fuckers in the Republican Party, Paul included, anywhere close to the White House.

Note on Romney: I am not expert enough in the intricacies of the DSM-IV to say whether Romney's sociopathy is enough to designate him as insane, hence my use of the term 'arguably.'