Political Bedfellows: Sen. Franken Attacked Me in a Speech, Yet I Was Behind Him 100%
Political speech writers must cut corners. Sometimes they cut too many. Al Franken's recently did.
I speak from experience. I was Ron Paul's senior researcher in his first term in 1976. I did not write his speeches. He never had a speech writer. I did ghost write his weekly newsletters. I never got him in trouble, but that was because I was very careful in my research. I have a Ph.D. in history. I know how to do basic research, especially when I had the services of the staff of the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service at my disposal.
Senator Franken's speech writer made a series of gaffes that every speech writer fears making. Nobody likes getting caught with his footnotes down.
In a speech against voting to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education -- a truly hopeless effort -- he called attention to her support for tax-funded school vouchers. Then, to tar and feather her, he inserted a statement of mine on Christians and politics. He implied that I was in some way behind her support of vouchers.
Why was this a gaffe? Because I have been the #1 opponent of school vouchers in the American Right ever since 1976. I was the first pro-free market critic to go public with this in my article, "Educational Vouchers: The Double Tax." I even debated Milton Friedman on this issue in 1993. You can read it here.
In other words, I am 100% behind Sen. Franken's opposition to vouchers.
But it goes beyond this. I was opposed to appointing anyone to fill the position. I think it should be left empty permanently. I have said so in print.
So, I was 100% behind Sen. Franken's call not to confirm Mrs. DeVos. I took this position because of my stand on Christian political action, which Sen. Franken attacked in his speech.
Politics makes strange bedfellows.
In his speech, he links Mrs. DeVos to the Acton Institute. Then he links me to the Acton Institute. He then attacks her for what I supposedly wrote for the Acton Institute. He says that the Acton Institute has served as a forum for me. Problem: I am in no way connected to the Acton Institute. It is Roman Catholic. I am a Calvinist. It is classical liberal. I am not. I have never submitted an article to the Acton Institute.
A Google search for "Gary North" and "Acton Institute" leads to a high-placed link to an article by me that responds to an Acton Institute scholar who attacked my politics as too biblical.
How did the speech writer make such gaffes? By cutting too many corners.
From the acoustics, my guess is that the speech was delivered in a nearly empty room. I can sympathize. I know that sound well.