Ron Paul’s son is running for the U.S. Senate seat that is being vacated by Jim Bunning in Kentucky and the NYT is pulling out all stops to shortcircuit and discredit the libertarian insurgent. Like his father, Rand Paul is a phyiscian and a devoted constitutionalist. But he does not have enough government experience and falls outside of the mainstream, according to the liberal media…

Anytime a candidate for public office invokes the founding period and the virtues of limited government, there are sure to draw ire and animosity from The New York Times. This is very evident in an interview with Rand Paul that ran in the newspaper’s Sunday magazine. The Kentucky Republican is running for the U.S. Senate seat that incumbent Jim Bunning is vacating.

Paul is expected to compete in the GOP primary with Secretary of State Trey Grayson. The winner will face either state Attorney General Jack Conway or Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, who are seeking the Democratic nomination.

Although Grayson was considered the front-runner and is favored by the party establishment, Paul is actually ahead in the polls could win in the May primary. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have thrown in with Grayson.

But as the son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), the former presidential candidate, the 47-year-old ophthalmologist has a strong identity with the libertarian cause and a highly motivated base of Tea Party activists.

This is completely unacceptable from the perspective of The New York Times, which pulls out all stops to marginalize and de-legitimize an insurgent candidacy that is very much in step with average Americans who have expressed concern about the size and scope of the federal government.

For starters, The Times is scandalized because the younger Paul is not a career politician and has not spent any time in government. Here is how the Q and A unfolds:

Did you consider running for local office? Isn’t it a big leap to go from being a 47-year-old ophthalmologist in Bowling Green, Ky., with no experience serving in government, to being a United States senator?

I tell people that my biggest attribute is having not held public office, which is a great attribute to possess. I think people are looking for regular citizens. I don’t think it’s a prerequisite that you be in office for 10 or 15 years.

What about five minutes? You haven’t even served in government for five minutes.

Ans: I don’t think it’s necessarily a prerequisite. I’ve been active in politics for a group called Kentucky Taxpayers United for 15 to 20 years.

From here, the exchange disintegrates into accusations of racism made on the sly. This is the preferred fallback position the left wing uses to discredit Tea Party activists who are continuing to gain momentum.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the new Republican media darling, emerges here as a foil against the more principled members of his party. One man’s “mainstream Republican” is another man’s unhinged big spender. In their effort to discredit the Paul candidacy, the Gray Lady may have unwittingly offered up the kiss of death to the establishment candidate.

Here is how the mainstream is defined:

Mainstream Republicans seem concerned that their party is being taken over by “angry white guys,” as Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator, said. He doesn’t want you to hijack the Republican Party.

Ans: I think this quote you are reading is about my father and not me.

It would not be reasonable Republicans who have a living memory of the Reagan Presidency the Gingrich Revolution to suggest that is Graham and other mainstreamers who have hijacked the party in deference to intrusive federal schemes.

But where the NYT has an agenda, there is no time for logic.

The interview concludes with a lecture in favor of Big Government:

But in light of your distrust of the federal government, where are you on an issue like seat belts? Federal legislation requiring people to wear seat belts could obviously save lives.

I think the federal government shouldn’t be involved. I don’t want to live in a nanny state where people are telling me where I can go and what I can do.

You shouldn’t trivialize issues of health and safety by calling them nanny issues.

The question is, do you want to live in a nanny state where the government tells you what you can eat, where you can smoke, where you can live, what you can do, or would you rather have some freedom, and freedom means that things aren’t perfect?

At least Paul gets the last word and as more Americans answer in the affirmative they will have considerably less patience for “mainstream Republicans” who covet positive press coverage.

Average citizens who have invoked the proudest traditions of the American Revolution during various Tea Party events have been tied with a long list of unsavory groups and individuals who operate at the fringes of American politics. The stark ideological differences between free market advocates and conspiracy theorists are nowhere acknowledged or reported in what could have been a detailed, even-handed informative article…

There’s a good report on the Tea Party movement struggling to break through some of the snide, superfluous commentary that works its way into reports about beleaguered American taxpayers who have found expression.

Every large-scale movement has disparate forces and peripheral players that are not central to the causes and concerns of most activists. While they deserve some mention, journalists should also maintain a sense of perspective so that readers are properly informed about overall tone and direction of the political forces at work.

Unfortunately, The New York Times sees fit to slight and marginalize the Tea Party movement instead of capturing and reporting on the key ingredients that have fueled average Americans who are becoming active for the first time.

This front page report includes some interesting nuggets and helpful background on the many elements of the Tea-Party movement. The reporter lands several good interviews with key players but inserts incendiary observations that dilute from what could have been an effective piece.

“The Tea Party movement defies easy definition, largely because there is no single Tea Party,” the report says.

So far, so good.

“At the grass-roots level, it consists of hundreds of autonomous Tea Party groups, widely varying in size and priorities, each influenced by the peculiarities of local history. In the inland Northwest, the Tea Party movement has been shaped by the growing popularity in eastern Washington of Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas, and by a legacy of anti-government activism in northern Idaho.”

Fair enough.

“Outside Sandpoint, federal agents laid siege to Randy Weaver’s compound on Ruby Ridge in 1992, resulting in the deaths of a marshal and Mr. Weaver’s wife and son,” the article continues. “To the south, Richard Butler, leader of the Aryan Nations, preached white separatism from a compound near Coeur d’Alene until he was shut down.”

And how does this relate back to the Tea-Party movement? So the next time a street crime is committed in close proximity to a progressive event, or say it is discovered that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright once sleep at the same hotel that also accommodates Democratic party activists this will somehow be converted into hard news.

There’s more….

“Further complicating matters, Tea Party events have become a magnet for other groups and causes — including gun rights activists, anti-tax crusaders, libertarians, militia organizers, the “birthers” who doubt President Obama’s citizenship, Lyndon LaRouche supporters and proponents of the sovereign states movement,” the report shrieks.

There are no interviews here with LaRouche supporters or “birthers,” which is not to say they did not invite themselves to certain Tea Party events. But is it really accurate to say the movement has become a “magnet” for either group. There’s a definitely a libertarian streak to the Tea Party at all levels in light of the emphasis that has been placed on free market issues and constitutional rights. Activists seem less interested in cultural questions as the movement is mostly concerned with economics.

This is the kind of an analysis that goes missing from the report. Given the left-wing bent of LaRouche’s economic views his supporters would not make for an easy fit with Tea Parties. The reporter also goes through considerable gymnastics to interlink conservative and libertarian activists with conspiracy theories animated by an unreasonable fear of the federal government. Here the reporter confuses distrust with paranoia.

The largely defunct John Birch Society also finds its way into the article as a way of needling Tea Party participants who are quoted including an Arizona sheriff who expresses concern over the scope and reach of the Federal Reserve Board. Unfortunately, he was set up in the following paragraph”

“It is no longer considered all that radical, he said, to portray the Federal Reserve as a plaything of the big banks — a point the Birch Society, among others, has argued for decades.”

There is a legitimate debate raging about the proper role of the Federal Reserve Board that gets into larger questions of financial reform. The Tea Party movement has been a conduit for these concerns but don’t expect them to get a fair hearing in the New York Times.