Guest Post by Chuck Raymond

Chuck is a NYC artist who has worked as an illustrator since the early 1980s. His fine art typically involves political themes and cultural critiques, a selection of which can be seen on flickr.

I’ve been saying nobody on network TV can get away with progressive views as David Letterman can under his long held guise as an idiot, although it’s a tired ruse as he’s on “it” when all have ceased. Nobody has a devastating follow up question as he does and that’s including cable!

Rand Paul (R-KY) was was on last Thursday night (February 24) and I waited wondering if he was going to go after him and he did as Paul didn’t get in one thing without a withering rebuttal. Case in point, Letterman does his “aw shucks” routine about the implications of the deficit, tax policy and the wealthy, and educational spending. Letterman countered by saying he isn’t buying what Paul is selling [11m 11sec], which was mostly tired, inconsistent Libertarian rhetoric. On the one hand, Paul wants to shrink the government and reduce the use of defense and green energy contractors, which he feels are a waste. On the other hand, he wants to increase the private sector. It seems like Paul is defining public and private as it suits him and talking out of both sides of his mouth. Government spending that goes to the private sector is bad, yet, private enterprise can do no wrong? I guess he was asleep during the subprime fiasco and resultant financial meltdown. At the core of Paul’s Tea Party approach to government is spending as little as possible and spending only on things he agrees with. Efficiency trumps fairness, access, or justice.

Paul came across like the corporate shill he is. When Dave advocated that maybe rather than looking at cutting education spending (which Paul painted to be a boondoggle) and that perhaps the US should spend more, Paul responded with “competition is good” worthy of the 80s Gordon Gekko. Speaking of the 80s, Letterman poked fun of Paul’s dated look, “I noticed you’re wearing jeans. Is that typical Kentucky senatorial garb?”