More on Jack Conway's Ad

Here's yet another piece attacking the Conway ad. I have a problem with this piece that goes beyond the actual content of the ad. The crucial quote from that article:

First, no candidate over the age of, say, 30 should be held politically accountable for anything he or she did in college—short of gross academic misconduct or committing a felony. Second, and more importantly, a politician’s religious faith should simply be off-limits. If it’s disgusting when conservatives question Barack Obama’s Christianity, then it’s disgusting when Jack Conway questions Rand Paul’s.

Second, the disgusting thing is only half that they question his Christianity. It's also half that they are lying, and in this case, until and unless he says "I used to be a non-Christian, now I'm a Christian, I made a mistake and it's in the past," the evidence suggests that Rand Paul is not really a Christian, and is thus lying about it.

But first of all, and more importantly, "short of gross academic misconduct or committing a felony." That's the key part of that article, for me. Because here's the most egregious incident of Rand Paul's storied career: he kidnapped, blindfolded, and tied the hands of a girl that I think he wad dating at the time (though not afterwards!), brought her to an area in the woods near a river, and made her smoke marijuana (a felony, no?) and worship the Aqua Buddha. Kidnapping. Tying up. Blindfolding. Forcing to take drugs. I don't know if that was a felony at the time, because I'm not familiar with the Texas state penal code at the time, but it certainly sounds pretty bad to me. This is not a light-hearted incident. This should not be dismissed as an example of how Mr. Paul just doesn't respect authority. This was a seriously aggressive, borderline violent act by Rand Paul, now running for Senator. I think that qualifies under the standard Jason Zengerle sets. It wasn't fun and games, and no, it's not the kind of thing that is adequately explained by being a college student. And again, some of this would be different if Rand Paul would say, yeah, that was a big fucking mistake, and I learned from it, and I've matured, and I wish I hadn't done it, and I apologize. But he hasn't said it.

This secret society's mission may have been to annoy the Baylor Administration. But its method was so unsavory that I think it is fair game to criticize Rand Paul for it. Yes, the direct allegations of anti-Christianity are uncalled for except to the extent that Rand Paul has opened the door with outright hypocrisy, which I think he may have. But let's not be too eager to defend Paul here: he did some seriously bad things in college that, to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't even claimed as youthful indiscretions. And his response to all of this is to say, how dare you question that I am a Christian? not how dare you insinuate that my not being a Christian would be a valid reason to vote against me.

I wish Conway hadn't run the ad, in large part because of all this backlash. I think it was majorly unwise. But I don't think it was particularly beyond the pale, I do think Rand Paul's own conduct in the campaign at least came close to justifying it, and I do think that Rand Paul has some serious 'splaining to do about this kidnapping of his.