I'm An International Punk

So, some news: I've got a piece at the Guardian's Comment is Free about the substance behind Barack Obama's "change and hope" theme --- and why it's congenial to libertarianism.

Also, Jamie Kirchick wrote a fairly devastating expose of Ron Paul's twenty year history of trading in racism, anti-Semitism, anti-gay bigotry, and conspiracy theories. I've got a companion piece at Pajamas Media, basically just cataloging some of the especially flagrant remarks in the Ron Paul Political Report.

Well, Matt Drudge linked to my PJM piece, and within about 15 minutes, it got more traffic than everything else I've ever written combined, or very nearly. True fact: Drudge rules the world.

Going in, I was fully aware of the buckets and buckets of bile the Paulites were going to hurl at me, but I thought that by being a libertarian, and explicitly stating that I was writing the piece as a libertarian, I'd be somewhat insulated. On the other hand, this was inevitable:

Daniel Koffler was James Kirchik's classmate at Yale.

This is the same story told by the original author's friend, yet passed off as another source in perfect disinformation style.

How do these things get so orchestrated and precisely timed?

That's right, the whole thing was a Skull & Bones/Illuminati/Bohemian Grove conspiracy to bring down Ron Paul.

My favorite response of all was the one I found at this anti-Semitic conspiracy nut web forum, under the heading "Other jews [sic] pick up TNR attack on Ron Paul." The thread begins begins:

Hi Alex,

Another hit piece, this time by Daniel Koffler (a Jew).

Then the webmaster quotes my bio and reacts to it:

Daniel Koffler graduated from Yale in 2006 with a BA in philosophy. He has written for Reason, Dissent, Jewcy, and the Guardian’s “Comment is Free,” among other outlets.

For people who think we overestimate the jewish [sic] network - this punk is one year out of school and he's writing for international publications. That does not happen without incredible connections. Jews are virtually the only people apart from sons of presidents who have those connections.

So true!

I'll be on the radio in Houston and Dallas tomorrow at 11:20 talking about the Ron Paul revelations. You can listen here.