Kentucky Fried Politics

The loss of Trey Grayson to Tea Party darling Rand Paul in Tuesday's U.S. Senate Republican primary in Kentucky was a personal blow to the state's senior senator, Mitch McConnell, who had backed Grayson and may have hurt him by making him appear to be the establishment candidate. To have your man rebuffed in your own state is embarrassing enough. But Rand Paul's recent and previous statements about civil rights has given McConnell more reason to be red-faced. The news that Paul apparently opposes the law that protects those with faces of other colors from discrimination has spread like wildfire across a bluegrass meadow.

Paul opposes the title in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that bars people who own businesses from refusing to serve blacks not because he is racist - oh, no, of course he isn't! - but because he opposes laws that infringe on the right of business owners to choose whom to serve and associate with and whom not to. It's an extension of Paul's and his father Ron Paul's loopy argument that government should not intervene with the rights of private businesses. never mind discrimination against minorities - if we followed the Paul family's logic to the letter in every circumstance, there'd be even less regulation against oil companies like BP than there is now (if that's possible).

Hardly surprisingly, at last one Fox commentator has come out in Paul's defense - specifically, noted misogynist John Stossel (formerly of ABC's "20/20") who said that restaurant owners, hoteliers and the like should have the right to refuse service to anyone they wish, even men with moustaches like Stossel, if they so choose. Well, if I owned a restaurant, I know of one mustachioed man I wouldn't serve! Not because of Stossel's moustache per se, mind you, but because of the cheesiness of it.

The Republican party may not distance themselves from Rush Limbaugh, but they should distance themselves from Rand Paul. His comments fan the flames of racism, whether he personally has any tolerance for black people or not. Mitch McConnell should be the first person in the Republican party to do so. Because he's from Kentucky? No, because his wife is former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, a Chinese-American woman. Without the 1964 civil rights law, hotel managers could refuse to give rooms to interracial couples.

This story certainly made everyone forget Richard Blumenthal. :-O