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Ayn Rand: The GOP’s Favorite Bonkers Demagogue - The Daily Beast

Democrats often limit their criticism of Republicans to public policy. But as Michael Tomasky points out, a new ad makes a more philosophical—and devastating—critique.

It was a bit rich last week to hear Paul Ryan, as he emerged from the House Republicans’ White House meeting, whining about being the victim of “demagoguery.” Obama replied that he understood a thing or two about the subject since he was “the job killing, death panel, probably-wasn't-born-here president.” In fact the Democrats have not yet even attacked the Ryan plan in quite the right way, which is on the basis of its immorality. I was glad to see over the weekend that one liberal group has finally done it.

There’s a reason Republicans are better at attacks than Democrats are. Well, there are actually two. The first is that the Republicans are more willing to lie. But the second and more subtle reason is that Republican attacks against Democrats are typically philosophical in basis, while Democratic attacks are usually policy-specific. Democratic attack ads say: X million seniors will go without care under the Republican plan. Republican attacks say: This is just more of the [insert relevant negative adjective] philosophy that laid America so low until Ronald Reagan came along and fixed everything. The difference exists for a simple reason: Republican programs are unpopular, but their bumper-sticker philosophy is popular (less government, stronger defense), while Democratic philosophy is viewed negatively but people strongly support specific government programs. This dichotomy makes for Republican attacks that are in general far more emotionally compelling. They tell a story and provide a context.


This is why I was pleased to see this ad from a progressive religious outfit called the American Values Network, which attacks the Ryan budget as immoral. Wait, doesn’t immoral in politics mean you kill babies or sleep with someone of your own sex? It doesn’t have to. It can mean what it meant for millennia in public life: atrocious treatment of the less fortunate in society. Imagine that. And the best thing about the ad is the way it links Ryan—speaking of demagoguery—to the most unjustifiably self-important, crashingly tedious, and plainly bonkers demagogue in American history: Ayn Rand.

The ad uses a clip from a 1959 television interview Rand gave to Mike Wallace (surprise moment: he is the only one of the two who fires up a cigarette) in which she affirmed that she views religion as “evil” and states that she, of all the thinkers in history, is unique in developing “a new code of morality not based on faith.” This got me curious enough to sit down and watch, finally, the entire Wallace interview, which lasts about 25 minutes and can be seen in three parts on YouTube (part one is here, and will lead you to the next two).

As the ad is produced by a religious group, it tends to stick to questions of God. But the sections of the Rand interview that deal with politics and society were more interesting to me and more germane to today’s debates. What a delusional madwoman. I could go on at length, but the moment that most crystallizes her estrangement from historical fact comes when Wallace says to her in effect: OK, your supposed laissez-faire Valhalla, with no taxes or regulations—this is not just some theory of yours. This world existed long ago, he put it to her; the problem was that people with power cheated and stole and exploited other people, so society made rules to try to prevent those things from happening. In response, Rand simply denies that this was the case and blames all corruption on the state, which would be news to, among many others, the men—and women, and children—who worked twelve hours a day, six days a week until the government constricted the capitalists’ freedom by stopping it.

Left: J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo

All this is germane today because of Rand’s influence on the contemporary GOP. Ryan is quoted in the ad saying, “Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism, and this to me is what matters most.” Doesn’t get much more direct than that. When Democrats say that Ryan wants to end Medicare as we know it, well, there’s a reason they say so. One can’t believe what Ryan apparently believes and not want to end Medicare as we know it. If he didn’t, he’d be a coward and a hypocrite. There is a version of Medicare that can be squared with Randian Objectivism, but it sure isn’t the Medicare we have. It’s pretty much the Medicare Ryan has proposed, in which seniors largely look after themselves, with decreased “utilization” of health-care services, and spend a lot more money doing it.

It’s astonishing that a scenario that in 1959 seemed a bad joke is now a driving force in our national dialogue.

Wallace introduced Rand by saying of her then-utterly-marginal philosophy that “if it ever did take hold, it would revolutionize our lives.” He did not mean it as a compliment. It’s astonishing that a scenario that in 1959 seemed a bad joke is now a driving force in our national dialogue. Thank God (pardon the expression) someone is pointing this out.

Newsweek/Daily Beast Special Correspondent Michael Tomasky is also editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

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Anthony Weiner was a playboy congressman when he wooed Hillary Clinton’s most-trusted aide, 12 years his junior, to marry him. Lois Romano reports on the glamorous and private woman. Plus, the latest on Weinergate.

As political pundits hyperventilated on Monday over whether Anthony Weiner could hold onto his job, more than a few Washington insiders were more curious about whether he could hold onto his wife: Huma Abedin, the legendary and enigmatic close aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.


Not surprisingly, Abedin was nowhere near the painful press conference when the brash Queens congressman twice tearfully apologized to her for sending lewd photographs of himself to women he met online. They were married 11 months ago in a ceremony officiated by Bill Clinton.

Weiner, 46, said he and Abedin, 34, "have no intention of splitting up over this" and maintained that he had not met the women with whom he corresponded. He did, however, admit that some of the inappropriate communications with other women happened after he and Abedin were married. He said that his wife knew about his pre-marriage online activities with women—but she was not aware that he had been lying for the past week about an explicit photo he posted to his Twitter account; he said publicly that his account had been hacked.


“We will weather this," he said. "I love her very much and she loves me."

Those who know the intensely private Abedin say that she has continued to work and put forward a strong demeanor in the face of 10 humiliating days of headlines about her husband’s poor judgment.

Abedin has long been considered one of world’s most intriguing women. Stunning, smart, fluent in Arabic, and notoriously discreet, she has for the past 15 years held a firm place in the Clintons' powerful orbit, mostly as Hillary Clinton’s “body person.”

There was never a shortage of powerful men drooling over her, and she was considered quite the catch when Weiner started pursuing her a few years ago.


On the surface, Weiner and Abedin would seem like an odd match. She is a practicing Muslim and he is Jewish. He actively courts the media while she has been a reluctant media star. The congressman was known to have had a pretty active bachelorhood, but he courted Abedin tenaciously despite her early ambivalence toward him. There was never a shortage of powerful men drooling over her, and she was considered quite the catch when Weiner started pursuing her a few years ago.

Abedin has been featured in Vogue—a spotlight not generally afforded a political staffer—and has been the subject of numerous profiles. She was listed in Time’s “40 under 40” young stars in politics.

“Abedin has the energy of a woman in her 20s, the confidence of a woman in her 30s, the experience of a woman in her 40s, and the grace of a woman in her 50s,” Clinton told Vogue in 2007. “She is timeless, her combination of poise, kindness, and intelligence are matchless.”

Abedin was born in Kalamazoo, Mich., but relocated to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with her parents when she was 2 years old. Her father was an Indian-born Islamic scholar who died in 1993, and her mother, a Pakistani, is a well-known academic.

Her first job for Hillary Clinton was as a White House intern in 1996 when Clinton was first lady. She has always worked close to Clinton and in 2000, when Clinton was running for the Senate, Abedin became her ubiquitous traveling aide, the person with Clinton every waking minute who makes the trains run on time and who must anticipate her boss’s needs. She carries two BlackBerries and is, in effect, the gatekeeper, thereby making her a rather powerful arbitrator of who reaches Clinton.

While Abedin doesn’t have an official diplomatic or policy role, her opinion on Mideast issues has always been sought and valued by both Clintons.

Lois Romano is a senior writer for Newsweek/Daily Beast based in Washington. She was a longtime political writer and columnist for The Washington Post, covering presidential campaigns and Washington powerbrokers.

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