Florida Man uses Psuedo Tough Guy act to deflect from Valid Question

"A good man obtains favor from the Lord,
But a man of wicked intentions He will condemn."
Proverbs 12:2

We don't care about the RPT chair.  We really don't.  We're not a delegate this cycle and we find the whole concept of holding a leadership election for Captain of the Titanic after the iceberg has been struck to be bizarre.

Nevertheless, for those who do care about such things, the past week saw a highly revealing development.

It began when Big Jolly politics asked some questions about Allen West's extracurricular activities.

One of the biggest issues in the race is the ability and willingness of the candidates to serve as a full-time State Chairman. Seven months After the 2018 State Convention, (nearly a year and a half after Dickey first took office) the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) approved a $150,000 annual salary for this State Chairman, with the expectation that the Chairman serve in a full-time capacity.

This strategy of expecting and paying for a full-time commitment from the State Chairman has paid tremendous dividends for the Party. Under Chairman Dickey’s full-time leadership, the Republican Party of Texas has posted record fundraising numbers, which is allowing the party to hire an unprecedented number of field staff across the state for the upcoming general election. Chairman Dickey has committed to continuing to serve as a full-time Chairman if he is re-elected to the post.

Dickey’s opponent, former one-term Florida Congressman Allen West, is well-known to many due to his frequent celebrity television appearances over the years. Since moving to Texas in 2014 to assume the leadership of the now-defunct National Center for Policy Analysis (which West led into bankruptcy), West showed little interest in Texas grassroots politics until announcing his candidacy for State Chairman last year.

West currently has a number of political and professional commitments that will make it impossible for him to make anything even close to the full-time commitment needed from the Republican Party of Texas State Chairman.

The Big Jolly piece goes on to detail various five and six figure commitments Allen West has made to any number of scammer PAC's "conservative organisations."

West replied on YouTube:


You should watch the three minute video for yourself, but the TL,DR version is that West resorts to blustery browbeating instead of candor.

West attempts to make this about the fact that he's "working for a living," or some such nonsense. This despite the fact that, as the excerpt above makes completely obvious, Big Jolly was asking if West would work full time for RPT. Political professionals call this "changing the subject."

This isn't about Allen West making money. This is about the fact that how Allen West is currently making money suggests Allen West won't be able to perform the duties if RPT chair. Last time we checked, the number of hours in a day remains capped at 24.

But there's another aspect about Allen West playing with matches in a field full of straw men that's far more disturbing.

During his diatribe, Allen West refers to being "a colonel in the United States Army" five or six times. You could turn it into a drinking game. The problem is, we've seen this playbook before. 

This is the Bill McRaven playbook: Use your military service (which isn't relevant to the position in question) to deflect any and all criticism of your current performance. Bill McRaven did this repeatedly during his time at UT (to the point that it became a running joke). The only difference between Bill McRaven and Allen West is that the former made it all the way to Admiral.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take a genius to see how this plays out in an RPT context.

Whenever the inevitable SREC questions arise about party finances, Allen West will attempt to gaslight the person asking the question: "CoLoNeL In ThE UnItEd StAtEs ArMy."

We prefer the Marines.

Bottom Line: This was a really easy question to answer, and the fact that Allen West chose to not answer it tells you what you need to know.

Paul Ryan on National Security

Over the past month, I've had a lot of positive things to say about Mitt's approach to national security.  That's good, because Paul Ryan's national security positions are unspecific and vague.  On national security, Paul Ryan is a blank slate.

In looking into Paul Ryan's record on national security issues I was amazed at it's thinness, especially for someone who has been in Congress for a decade and a half.  Paul Ryan supports standard Republican boilerplate on Afghanistan, he voted for some sanctions against Iran, and he opposed cutting and running in Iraq five years ago.  That being said, Paul Ryan has maintained remarkable silence on many national security issues, from border security, to domestic Islamic subversion, to Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Paul Ryan does deserve credit, however, for his position on Obama's War in Libya.  Last year, Paul Ryan said:

"[Obama] didn't go to Congress, didn't ask for authority, the leading from behind strategy at NATO I think was very strange, and I don't think they had a mission well defined.

This is important, because it demonstrates that Paul Ryan understands that the issue of Congressional approval supersedes any discussion of the merits or demerits of the policy.

I had hoped Mitt would pick Alan West or Michele Bachmann, both of whom have demonstrated national security leadership in the past year.  That obviously didn't happen.  Paul Ryan's addition to the ticket tells us nothing about the national security policies of a Romney/Ryan administration.

Bottom Line: Paul Ryan is a blank slate on National Security.  Unlike Barack Obama and Joe Biden, however, neither Mitt Romney nor Paul Ryan is actively committing treason against the United States.  That's good enough.

Update: John Bolton on this topic.