From the Archives: Glenn Beck's substitute host Doc Thompson talks about libertarian values and hot issues of the day

Glenn Beck's substitute host Doc Thompson talks about libertarian values and hot issues of the day
August 19, 2010
11:40 PM MST

Radio talk-show host Doc Thompson, whose regular gig is afternoons from 3 to 6 o’clock on WRVA (1140 AM) in Richmond but who sometimes substitutes for Glenn Beck on his nationally syndicated program, spoke with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on August 10 about his political philosophy, the hot issues of the day, and this year’s election prospects.

“Personally, I live my life with fairly conservative leanings,” Thompson explained, but “I take a little bit of a step toward libertarian when it comes to government, in that I want to be left alone. Yes, I’m a conservative, and I have conservative values, but I don’t want the government necessarily supporting conservatism or liberalism. I want them to just leave everyone alone.”

Listeners are ‘ticked’

Doc Thompson

Thompson said that his listeners are angered by the growth and intrusiveness of the federal government.

Most of what concerns them, he said, “is the simple, ‘I can’t believe government is doing this’ issues, the no-brainer issues.”

He listed their top issues: “They’re ticked about health care, they’re ticked about the spending, and they’re ticked about immigration. Those are probably the big three things right now.”

The listeners’ irritation is easy to understand, he added.

These all are “really simple issues to them. You know: don’t spend what you don’t have; I can’t spend that much. Let me pick for myself whether I want health care and what [kind of] health care. And immigration – there’s a border; you’re breaking the law.”

‘Speaking from their hearts’
These concerns are not limited to people in the Richmond area, either. When Thompson wears Glenn Beck’s headphones, he hears the same complaints.

“It’s very similar when I fill in for him,” he pointed out.

“I’m not sure if that’s because that’s the general attitude of anybody [who is] leaning conservative, or if it’s that Glenn and I are similar. Our approaches are pretty similar to things but the topics, the discussion, the things people are saying are virtually the same.”

Thompson has noticed a similar phenomenon with regard to the Tea Party movement.

“It’s the same, too, tea party to tea party. I go around and meet with people all over the region, from Williamsburg to the Shenandoah Valley. I was up in Pittsburgh in the spring, speaking at a tea party. All of them, it’s the same. It’s like you’ve taken the same people and just put them in a different place. The same quotes – [but] it’s not talking points. These people are speaking from their hearts and saying the same things: ‘Enough is enough, leave me alone!’”

While this year’s election looks to be good for Republicans, Thompson said, he predicts it might turn out to be more of a mixed bag, with no “clear-cut winner.”

“It’s just going to be election by election, district by district. I think you’ll see a conservative movement somewhat this election, and probably a bigger one the next election,” when President Obama faces re-election in 2012.

For those outside the Richmond area who want to hear him, Doc Thompson will be filling in for Glenn Beck on Labor Day and again on the following Friday.

Editor's note: Doc Thompson passed away on February 5, 2019. To hear the audio version of this interview, visit the February 9, 2019, episode of The Score from Bearing Drift.

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 19, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Remembering Bobby Kennedy's Death 50 Years Later

Barbara Perry

Last Saturday's episode of The Score on Bearing Drift featured an interview with Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.  I spoke to Dr. Perry about the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-New York) as he was campaigning in California for his party's presidential nomination.

Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan on June 5 (although, as Dr. Perry acknowledges but dismisses in our interview, there is some dispute over whether Sirhan's gun killed RFK or if there was a second gunman) and died on June 6, 1968.  Coincidentally, California Governor Ronald Reagan, who also sought his party's presidential nomination that year, although briefly, died on June 5, 2004, and June 6 is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II.

My interview with Barbara Perry can be heard at about the 26-minute mark of The Score for June 2, 2018, on Bearing Drift.  Here's an excerpt from the program notes for that episode.

This coming week, on June 6, Americans will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Robert F. Kennedy, who was gunned down during a tumultuous year that also saw the murder of Martin Luther King Junior, riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, and a turning point in public opposition to the war in Vietnam. I spoke by telephone to presidential scholar Barbara Perry of the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia about the significance of Kennedy’s death fifty years ago. (The Score also featured Dr. Perry a few weeks ago, when she talked about the late Barbara Bush and the role of First Ladies.) Those of you old enough to remember RFK's funeral will no doubt still recall the haunting version of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" sung at St. Patrick's Cathedral by the pop star and Kennedy family friend, Andy Williams. It's not on the podcast but seemed appropriate to embed here.

Rundown of Recent Podcasts on 'The Score'

As announced here on March 17, I have become host and producer of The Score, a podcast on Bearing Drift, Virginia's leading political web site for conservative and libertarian writers. In addition to appearing on Bearing Drift, The Score is also broadcast over-the-air on WINC-AM and FM in Winchester, Virginia, and is available as a podcast on the Red State Talk Radio Network.

Since that time, I have assembled, edited, and posted eight episodes of The Score, with a wide array of interviews and features.

The first episode ("The Score: Student Debt and Social Security, LPVA Senate Hopeful, and African Progress") appeared March 17 and featured interviews with Elliott Harding, Matt Waters, and Marian Tupy.

My second episode ("The Score: Focus on the First Amendment") had interviews with former ACLU executive director Nadine Strossen, author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (published May 1 by Oxford University Press); John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute; and William Hitchcock of the Miller Center of Public Affairs, who talked about his new book, The Age of Eisenhower.  A bonus feature was an interview about hemp farming with author Doug Fine.

The following week drew on interviews with authors I met at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville ("The Score: Senate Hopefuls, True Crime, Big Chicken, and Dead Center"). It also featured interviews with U.S. Senate candidates Corey Stewart and Nick Freitas. The authors included Bill Sizemore, Radley Balko, Maryn McKenna, and Jason Altmire. Added bonus: Albemarle County Sheriff Chip Harding.

The next episode continued with author interviews from the Virginia Festival of the Book ("The Score: Pentagon Science, Richard Nixon, Social Activists, and Nicotine Regulation"), including Sharon Weinberger, Roben Farzad, and John Farrell. I also introduced a feature called "From the Archives" with Ken Hughes of the Miller Center and talked to Jamie Kirchick of the Brookings Institution and Phil Kerpen of American Commitment.

Seven days later, more author interviews ("The Score: Campus Censors, Grassroots Activism, Chappaquiddick, and More") with Keith Whittington, Emily Dufton, Joe Tone, and Jamie Kirchick, in a return appearance, plus a new weekly film review segment with Tim Hulsey, who took a look at the Ted Kennedy biopic Chappaquiddick. We also remembered the late David Rothbard of CFACT in our "From the Archives" retrospective.

Two weeks ago ("The Score: Barbara Bush, Tom Garrett, and Sgt. Stubby"), we spoke to Barbara Perry of the Miller Center about the late First Lady Barbara Bush, had a lengthy two-part interview with Congressman Tom Garrett (R-VA5), and pulled an interview with GMU Professor Colin Dueck "From the Archives." Tim Hulsey reviewed Sgt. Stubby, an animated film about a military dog in World War I.

Last week's show ("The Score: Madieu Williams, Tim Kaine, Pink House, General Assembly") included an interview with former NFL player and union representative Madieu Williams; a joint interview with David Toscano, minority leader in the House of Delegates, and state Senator Creigh Deeds; excerpts from an interview with Senegal's ambassador to the United States, Babacar Diagne; and an excerpt from a speech at UVA by Senator Tim Kaine; and Tim Hulsey's reviews of Little Pink House and I Can Only Imagine.  The "From the Archives" segment featured author Evan Thomas.

This week's episode (posted just a few hours ago) has interviews with U.S. Senate candidates E.W. Jackson and Nick Freitas; Delegate Rob Bell; and Will Lyster of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society.  Tim Hulsey reviews Avengers: Infinity War and we look back at the 2012 U.S. Senate campaign with E.W. Jackson in "From the Archives."

I'll post these rundowns periodically and -- I hope -- more frequently in the months to come.

Listen to Me on the Radio (and Podcast)

Starting with this weekend's episode, I am the host and producer of "The Score," a podcast featured on the news and politics web site Bearing Drift. "The Score" is also broadcast over the airwaves on WINC 1400 AM and WINC 104.9 FM in Winchester, Virginia. In addition, “The Score” can also be heard around the world on Red State Talk Radio Network, its affiliates, and on its Roku channel and free Android app.

This week's guests on "The Score" are Elliott Harding, former legislative director for Congressman Tom Garrett (R-VA5), who talks about a bill that would reduce students' debts in return for their deferring retirement; Libertarian Party nominee for the U.S. Senate Matt Waters; and Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute, who answers my questions about Africa's economic future.

If you're in the vicinity of WINC's AM and FM signals, you can listen to "The Score" at 7:00 o'clock on Saturday morning, preceded by "America This Week" and followed by "In the Garden with Andre Viette."

Hosting a radio show has long been an ambition of mine.  It probably dates to my earliest days listening to talk radio in Milwaukee as a teenager.  Back then it was a late-night program on WEMP-AM hosted by Ira Fistell.  His mix of interviews with authors and celebrities with listener call-ins was still new in the early 1970s (before the FCC repealed the "fairness doctrine") but it set a standard for me.  I also appreciated and learned from Joey Reynolds' laid-back, conversational style manifested in his longtime overnight program from WOR-AM in New York City.  Because, really, what is an interview but a form of conversation?

In my career as a public policy analyst, author, and activist, I have been a guest on more radio and TV programs than I can count, in studios from Las Vegas to New York to Johannesburg and by phone across North America and around the world.  In the early 1990s, I was co-host of a cable access show in Arlington, Virginia, called "Politics: Landry vs. Sincere" and I was a correspondent, book reviewer, and anchor on "Gay Fairfax," a news magazine show originating in Northern Virginia but bicycled to cable systems throughout the Mid-Atlantic.

Readers of this web site will recall that, in July 2015, I sat in for host Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM while he was on vacation.   Later that year, I auditioned to take over the afternoon drive-time program on that same station.

I have been contributing interview segments to "The Score" since I began writing for Bearing Drift in late 2011, with spots featuring Virginia politicians like former governors George Allen, Bob McDonnell, and Doug Wilder; Senators Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, and Jim Webb; and Members of the House of Representatives like Eric Cantor, Tom Garrett, Bob Goodlatte, and Robert Hurt -- not to mention numerous candidates for public office, members of the General Assembly, and authors and experts on public policy issues.  (Scroll through "The Score" archive to track those down.)  My thanks to former host Scott Lee and former producer Norm Leahy for those opportunities.

In addition to all this, I have been a happy participant in the weekly political roundtable on Coy Barefoot's "Inside Charlottesville" show on 94.7 WPVC-FM, along with fellow panelists Jackson Landers and Shaun Kenney.  You can listen to us live on Monday afternoons at 5:00 o'clock.  There's a livestream of the program and it is also archived as a podcast on InsideCville.com.

The past week has been a whirlwind as I taught myself the basics of editing a 55-minute radio program but I hope the result is easy listening to provocative and timely interviews that inform our audiences and stimulate their conversations. One aim:  to syndicate the show to more broadcast stations, not just in Virginia but elsewhere in the United States, too.  If your favorite radio station could use some fresh content, please recommend "The Score" to its program director.

Briefing with Congressman Tom Garrett and Afghan and Czech Ambassadors

Fifth District Congressman Tom Garrett on Friday hosted several diplomats on a tour of Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello. After the tour, he and two of them – Ambassador Hamdullah Mohib from Afghanistan and Ambassador Hynek Kmonícek from the Czech Republic – answered questions from the local Charlottesville news media.

Garrett explained that even though, as a slaveholder, Thomas Jefferson was a flawed individual, the Declaration of Independence that he drafted was a “brilliant” document that led to freedom not only in the United States but around the world. Both Ambassador Mohib and Ambassador Kmonícek acknowledged that they learned things about U.S. history and Jefferson himself by taking the tour of Monticello, and that there are lessons they could convey to their compatriots back home.

(Ambassador Kmonícek joked that, where he comes from, a 200-year-old house is considered new.)

You can see the entire press conference here:

Congressman Garrett also answered questions about current domestic policy. Tyler Hawn of the Charlottesville Newsplex asked him about the budget bill that was passed late in the night and signed Friday morning by President Trump, and whether the process was frustrating. Garrett replied (starting at the 9:28 minute mark in the video):

It’s ironic that we stand at the home of Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence, which was signed by people who knew when they put their name on that paper that if they were captured they would be killed. We’ve devolved into a political class with the inability to say “no.”

I voted against the National Defense Authorization Act even though people would describe me as a hawk, because thirty-plus years ago department of defense agreed with other federal agencies to be audited – it’s never been audited.

To continue to spend and spend and spend is a symptom of a political class without the courage to do what they think is right when it’s too difficult and standing for reelection having done what you said, even when it was difficult or uncomfortable, is the hallmark of who we are supposed to be as a people.

I voted against that. I think President Trump was wrong to capitulate on heightened spending. He can spin it however he likes. We need to draw lines and assure that taxpayer dollars are being spent efficiently and on the core functions of government. We’re not doing that. It wasn’t OK when President Obama spent profligately. It’s not OK when President Trump does it. So, yes, I’m frustrated.

Garrett also answered a question (about 10:40 in the video) about pending immigration legislation and how it will affect participants in DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).

That’s going to start in the Senate, for sure, because that’s the chamber where I think they can get something out. I’ve spoken with dozens of DACA recipients – dozens may be low – they can prove it because they’ve filmed me. I’d love to have a solution for DACA. I don’t think deferred action is the proper long-term solution but I’m not going to vote for anything until we secure our southern border.

To do the same thing again and again and expect a different result is the definition of insanity. And I’ve said this to these people with whom I’ve spoken: I think border security should be this AND that, not a this THEN that. We tried this in ’86 with a this-then-that and it failed. And I haven’t had any of the people with whom I’ve spoken who are DACA recipients have a problem with that.

So, I think if we set aside some of the hyperbolic rhetoric that we can get something done but right now people need to step back from the rhetorical edge, acknowledge the existential reality to the young people who are DACA recipients, and also acknowledge that it makes no sense not to take action to secure our southern border.

There are plenty of other gems in the conversation, from both the ambassadors and from Congressman Garrett, who said he would like to do more programs like this, perhaps three or four times each year, bringing ambassadors from Washington to Charlottesville to visit both the University of Virginia and Monticello.

In addition to Tyler Hawn of the Newsplex, Pete DeLuca of NBC29 covered the press event in the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Gallery at Monticello's David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center.

This article was previously published, in slightly different form, on Bearing Drift.

Repost: Jeff Flake, Donald Trump, and Edmund Burke

Last week Tuesday, at a fundraising reception for his reelection campaign, Jeff Flake and I briefly reminisced about our – well, his – early days in Washington a quarter century ago, when we were both policy wonks working on African issues.

Rick Sincere & Jeff Flake

Those were simpler times. George H.W. Bush was President. The Cold War had just come to an end, and the West and its liberal values had won. We were riding a tide of prosperity buoyed by the Reagan administration’s economic policies and the 1986 tax reforms. Jeff had not yet run for public office but I had tested the political waters in a special election for the Virginia House of Delegates.

Jeff Flake went on to bigger and better things: president of the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, Member of Congress, U.S. Senator and chairman of the Africa subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Earlier this year, he wrote Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle, borrowing a title from Barry Goldwater's 1960 book.

Today he stunned us with his announcement that he would retire from the Senate because of the debasement of the Republican Party and government institutions by their putative “leader,” Donald J. Trump.

He explained his decision not to seek reelection to the Arizona Republic by saying “there may not be a place for a Republican like me in the current Republican climate or the current Republican Party."

In an eloquent and hard-hitting speech on the floor of the Senate – which became the lead story on today’s edition of All Things Considered on NPR and no doubt flooded the headlines and airwaves of Arizona news outlets – Flake laid out his reasons for retiring and made it clear that Trump is a cancer eating away at the body politic. If anyone deserves blame for the destruction of the Republican party and its values, it is Trump.

What was once the party of Goldwater, Ford, and Reagan has become listless, boneheaded, and petulant.

But those are my words, not Flake’s. Here is what he had to say to his colleagues in the Senate today:

It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics. Regret because of the indecency of our discourse. Regret because of the coarseness of our leadership.

Regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our, I mean all of our complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end. In this century, a new phrase to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order, that phrase being the new normal. That we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue with the tone set up at the top. We must never regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals, we must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country. The personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institution the flagrant disregard for truth and decency.

And more:

Without fear of the consequences and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as telling it like it is when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified.

And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit and weakness. It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up? What are we going to say?

Mr. President, I rise today to say: enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes the normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it.

Read the whole thing here, with its citations of James Madison and Theodore Roosevelt. Watch it here.

Make no mistake – talented, wise legislators like Jeff Flake depart the Senate and political life because a blowhard in the White House has no sense of propriety, or empathy, or humility, and no understanding of the Constitution or the rule of law or the limits of his own authority. This bodes ill for the Republic.

As I write this, I am still shaking in anger and sadness. Edmund Burke wrote that the “only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” When sinister forces like Steve Bannon and his orange-rind puppet gleefully sideline good men like Jeff Flake, evil triumphs.

This has been reposted and slightly adapted from an article on Bearing Drift published October 24, 2017.

From the Archives: Virginia businessman Tim Donner relates ‘eerie’ memory of 9/11 in New York City

Virginia businessman Tim Donner relates ‘eerie’ memory of 9/11 in New York City
September 10, 2012 7:38 PM MST

Like all Americans who were old enough to comprehend what happened on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, Northern Virginia businessman Tim Donner has vivid memories of that day. His recollection, however, includes what he calls a “chilling coincidence” that borders on the eerie.

Donner is the owner of Horizons Television in Great Falls, Virginia, which specializes in documentary, educational and promotional video production, and founder of One Generation Away, an educational and public policy organization. He was a candidate for the U.S. Senate before withdrawing from the race and endorsing Republican nominee George F. Allen. He also contributes commentary to the online journal of news and opinion, Bearing Drift.

It was his role as a video producer that placed Donner and his wife in Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Remember the Regency

As he related the story to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner in a telephone interview, “[we] were in New York on business that day doing a historical documentary for a longtime client and we were staying at the Regency Hotel.”

The significance of the name of the hotel and “why that fits into the story,” he added parenthetically, would become clear “in just a little bit.”

Continuing, he explained, he and his wife got their “gear together for a video shoot that day and as we head out the door, the doorman at the hotel says a plane just hit the World Trade Center.”

Unperturbed by that news, Donner figured “that perhaps this was a light plane, similar to one that had flown into the White House months before that, so we didn’t make much of it.”

So they went about their business and, once they arrived at their client’s office, he recalled, “we sat there and watched on TV live as the second plane hit the World Trade Center.”

‘Chill up my spine’

At that point, he said, like so many others, “we realized we were under attack and at that moment it struck me -- it struck me hard, it sent a chill up my spine -- that I had been to the Regency Hotel [just] three or four times in my life.”

His first visit to the Regency, he said, was when he was about eight years old: “The first time that I had been there was having lunch with my grandparents on November 22, 1963.”

On that occasion, Donner said, “a waiter came up and told my grandmother, ‘The president has just been shot.’”

Two seminal moments

Tim Donner

The spinal chill he felt eleven years ago, he explained, “came from the sudden realization that I was in exactly the same spot on November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was shot and killed, that I was on September 11, when we were attacked in New York and Washington.”

Those dates, he went on, “are the two seminal moments that anybody our age will remember for the rest of their lives. They’ll remember where they were and what they were doing.”

For Donner, “this is a coincidence of incalculable proportions,” he said, “because you couldn’t even set any odds upon being in the same place for both of those events, especially when it was some random hotel that I’d not been to more than three or four times in my life.”

That coincidence, he concluded, “was eerie, to say the least, because the chances of that happening were so astronomical as to be off the charts. The realization of that just makes one wonder about larger metaphysical questions.”



Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 10, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: NRO’s Jonah Goldberg finds witch hunts and inquisitions ‘fascinating’

NRO’s Jonah Goldberg finds witch hunts and inquisitions ‘fascinating’
August 2, 2012 3:40 PM MST

In writing his new book about progressive ideology, National Review Online contributor Jonah Goldberg discovered some surprising facts about the inquisitions of the Middle Ages.

While conducting research for The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas, Goldberg “became really fascinated with the history of the inquisitions and the witch hunts in medieval Europe.”

His book, a follow-up to the 2008 best-seller Liberal Fascism, includes a lengthy, four-part chapter on the Catholic Church, a result of what he uncovered.

Until he began looking into the topic more deeply, Goldberg said, he had “had no idea how incredibly screwed up our popular understanding of what the witch hunts were about and what the inquisitions were about.”

Misunderstanding witch hunts
Goldberg spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about his research during a break at the RightOnline conference in Las Vegas in June.

He noted that recognizing our misunderstanding of the nature of witch hunts is “not to say the witch hunts were good or the inquisitions were good, but they were far less the tragedies and travesties that the Left or the popular culture makes them out to be."

Moreover, he added, "the role the Catholic Church in these things was far different than what I had realized.”

Church as check

Jonah Goldberg

What Goldberg learned is that “the Catholic Church was a check on [the worst of] these things. The real problems were with the people themselves -- the masses, They were constantly wanting to lynch people for being witches.”

At the same time, taking advantage of the peasants’ illiteracy “local, secular aristocrats and lords were constantly pandering to the mob and the Church would come in and say, ‘Calm down everybody, let’s figure out if this person is really a witch or not.’ and often, very often, would say, ‘You guys are nuts, leave this poor woman alone.’”

Pointing to an image from popular culture, Goldberg explained that “the role of the Catholic Church we get from Monty Python, ‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition’, is a much more complicated story. I found that fascinating and that’s why I have such a huge chapter on the Catholic Church” in The Tyranny of Cliches.

An audio version of the complete interview with Jonah Goldberg is available on Bearing Drift radio, "The Score."

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 2, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Author Brian Doherty explains Ron Paul’s ambivalence on gay issues

Publisher's note: This article is part of a series to mark June as Gay Pride Month. It was originally published on Examiner.com on May 18, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Author Brian Doherty explains Ron Paul’s ambivalence on gay issues
May 18, 2012 10:13 PM MST

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has a record on gay-rights issues that can best be described as mixed.

For instance, Dr. Paul was one of only four Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote in favor of repealing the ban on openly gay personnel in the armed forces known as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

Paul also opposes a federal constitutional amendment that would prohibit same-sex marriage across the United States, yet he is the sponsor of legislation that would remove from federal courts the jurisdiction to hear and rule upon challenges to laws that ban gay marriage.


‘Voluntary and consensual agreements’
In his 2011 book, Liberty Defined, Paul suggests there should be a separation of marriage and state, just like there is separation of church and state.

In his chapter on marriage, he argues that “[if] the government was not involved, there would be no discussion or controversy over the definition of marriage. Why should the government give permission to two individuals for them to call themselves married? In a free society, something that we do not truly enjoy, all voluntary and consensual agreements would be recognized. If disputes arose, the courts could be involved as in any other civil dispute.”

This reference to the courts as protectors of contracts seems to be at odds with the bill he introduced to take marriage laws out of the jurisdiction of the federal courts.


‘One man and one woman’

While Paul seems to be tepidly endorsing the idea that same-sex couples could wed, he has said on several occasions that he thinks marriage should be limited to one man and one woman.

While campaigning in Iowa earlier this year, he said that he believes “that marriage is between one man and one woman and must be protected. I supported the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress’ constitutional authority to define what other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a same sex marriage license issued in another state.”

Journalist Brian Doherty has covered Ron Paul since 1999. He is the author of a new book, Ron Paul's rEVOLution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired. After a panel discussion about his book this week at the Cato Institute, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner asked Doherty about what appears to be Ron Paul’s “uncharacteristically studied ambivalence” about gay rights issues, particularly with regard to marriage equality.

Something ‘weird’
Paying a compliment to his interviewer, Doherty replied that “It is likely that you know every twist and turn of his thoughts on this issue better than me,” but he did go on to offer a partial explanation for Paul’s positions.

“I remember where he’s come to at this point, where I think he reliably will give the ‘get government out of marriage entirely’ answer, but I know his history with things like DOMA is more complicated than that. I’ve honestly forgotten every twist and turn of it.”

At bottom, Doherty explained, Paul’s inconsistent positions on gay rights issues can be explained by the fact that “he’s a 77-year-old American man who’s lived in Texas. There probably is a personally rooted, religiously rooted sense” – and here Doherty spoke sotto voce – “that there’s something a little ‘weird’ about homosexuality that maybe he’s not entirely comfortable with.”

‘Bruno-esque’
At the same time, Doherty noted, “I’m pretty sure both from watching him and knowing some of his associates, that that doesn’t come out in person, except possibly in a Bruno-esque situation” -- referring to a bizarre episode in the 2009 film Bruno in which actor Sacha Baron Cohen makes a pass at Ron Paul in a dimly-lit hotel room – “which I think is understandable.”

But, Doherty added, “circumstances and time had to probably open his mind a little on that question and I don’t personally fault him for it too much.”

In the end, he said, the answer to the gay-rights question that Ron Paul has come to embrace “seems to me about the correct libertarian-qua-libertarian answer.”

Complete audio of this interview with Brian Doherty can be heard as a podcast through Bearing Drift.

Additional excerpts from this interview focus on a post-Ron Paul political future and the decentralized nature of the Ron Paul phenomenon.

From the Archives: Openly gay Navy veteran rejected for judgeship by Virginia legislature

Openly gay Navy veteran rejected for judgeship by Virginia legislature
May 16, 2012 1:40 AM MST

How often does a state legislature’s vote on the appointment of a local traffic-court judge win the attention of the New York Times, MSNBC, Washington Post, and other national news outlets?

Not often (if ever), except when, as in the case of Virginia judicial nominee Tracy Thorne-Begland, the proposed judge is openly gay and the only one of dozens of similar prospective judges rejected by the state House of Delegates.

Thorne-Begland, a prosecutor for the past decade in the Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, was sponsored by Republican Delegate Manoli Loupassi and two colleagues to fill an open slot in the city’s General District Court, which has jurisdiction over traffic offenses, small claims, and petty crimes.

Bob Marshall intervenes

Thorne-Begland’s nomination was vociferously opposed by U.S. Senate candidate Bob Marshall, who represents Manassas and parts of Prince William County in the House of Delegates. Marshall said that Thorne-Begland, a Navy veteran who served as a pilot during the first Gulf War, was unsuitable for the job because of his previous activism on behalf of the civil rights of gay citizens and because he is legally married to his same-sex partner even though Virginia’s constitution forbids same-sex marriage.

Marshall argued that Thorne-Begland could not be trusted to uphold the law in a neutral, judicious manner because, like Marshall himself, he is outspoken on gay-rights issues.

Thirty-three legislators voted their approval of the nomination, which had sailed through the Republican-dominated Courts of Justice Committee without controversy. Thirty-one voted against the nomination, while ten abstained and 26 were absent for the 1:00 o'clock a.m. roll call. A majority of 51 votes was necessary for the nomination to succeed.


Social media outrage

Virginia lawmakers and voters took to social media to register their outrage at the vote.

Shortly after the vote, at 1:16 a.m., Delegate Mark Keam (D-Fairfax County) tweeted a photo of the vote display board in the House of Delegates and said, “VA House voted down Tracy Thorne-Begland as a General District Court Judge. First nominee rejected in my 3 years here.”

State senator Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) posted on his Facebook wall:

“I'm glad this is being noticed and criticized widely! My worst day in nine years in the General Assembly. I can't imagine how Tracy Thorne-Begland feels.”

State senator Mark Herring (D-Loudoun County) also posted on Facebook:

“The treatment that Mr. Thorne-Begland received by the General Assembly, well after midnight Tuesday morning, was disgraceful and offensive... Together with many of my fellow Virginians, I am embarrassed by what I witnessed take place early this morning.”

Elsewhere on Facebook, Richmond City Council member Charles Samuels wrote:

“It’s rare that I comment about the decisions of other elected bodies, but I have to say that the decision to vote down the judicial sponsorship of Mr. Tracy Thorne-Begland in the General District Court for the City of Richmond surprises, disappoints and frustrates me.”

Delegate Jennifer McLellan (D-Richmond) posted her floor speech on the matter on YouTube, noting that Thorne-Begland "was willing to fight and die for his country but he was not willing to lie about who he was to continue to serve."

On Twitter, the Virginia ACLU stated:

“We don't take positions on judicial [appointments], but shame on [Virginia] House for rejecting Thorne-Begland [because] he's gay.”

Lawyer Brian Schoeneman, a 2011 candidate for the House of Delegates, headlined an article on the widely-read Virginia politics web site, Bearing Drift, “Vote against openly gay judicial nominee another black eye for Virginia.”

Schoeneman wrote that “the vote last night was wrong. We let irrelevant issues cloud the real question – whether Thorne-Begland was qualified and would be competent in doing the job of a General District Court judge – with conjecture and character-assassination. Those are the only questions that matter, and we ignored them by bringing his past activism into play, especially when it would have little impact on the job.”

That article, published on a conservative web site, drew 71 comments by late Tuesday evening, a few favoring the negative vote against Thorne-Begland but most agreeing with the view that the vote was shameful.

Based on those comments and others, many Virginia political activists anticipate that this legislative vote will result in ridicule by late-night TV comedians like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Jay Leno.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 16, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.