By Lee A. Daniels

Is Rand Paul channeling George Allen?

You remember George Allen? He was the Republican Senator from Virginia, widely considered as late as mid-2006 the odds-on favorite to succeed George W. Bush as President –until he self-destructed in a “macaca” minute during the re-election contest that he ultimately lost to Jim Webb.

Paul, the self-proclaimed Tea Party candidate who last Tuesday won the Republican primary in Kentucky for its open Senate seat, is apparently trying to show that, when it comes to substantive politics, he’s not ready for prime time, either.

Instead of building on his initial boasts that the movement was ready to wield substantial political power, Paul has spent the last week in that familiar conservative position: trying to convince the public he’s neither a racist nor a hypocrite.

So far, it’s not going well.

Late Friday, after displaying astonishing political incompetence from Tuesday night to Friday, Paul cancelled his scheduled Sunday morning appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

One could almost hear the stunned gasps echoing around the national political arena. Cancel on one of the venues where politicians get the chance to prove they belong on the national stage?

Well, at least Paul, son of Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul, whose quest for the GOP presidential nomination helped gin up the Tea Party movement, was being consistent: five incredible political gaffes in four consecutive days.

First, on the very night of the election Paul, contrary to the Tea Party’s claim to be a movement of ordinary folk, held his victory party at a posh Kentucky country club. He later defended the decision by saying that golf clubs are no longer exclusive because Tiger Woods has “brought golf to a lot of the cities and city youth and so, no, I don’t think it is as nearly as exclusive as people once considered it to be.”

Second, in trying to explain Libertarianism in an interview with Rachel Maddow, the progressive news show host, Paul said he disagreed with a provision of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 that barred private businesses from discriminating.

The next day, trying to deflect a buzz-saw of criticism, Paul proclaimed his support for equal rights and abhorrence of racial discrimination. That merely intensified the sudden harsh glare on the real-world implications of Libertarianism’s minimal-government philosophy.

The bad impression was soon reinforced by Paul’s assertion Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that President Obama was being “un-American” in criticizing BP for the massive oil spill now threatening the environment and at least two of the economic pillars – tourism and fishing — of the entire Gulf region.

“I think [Obama] sounds really un-American in his criticism of business,” Paul said. “I’ve heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen.”

For good measure, he applied the same unwillingness to examine the causes of a calamity to the recent West Virginia mine disaster.

The decision from the Paul camp to back out of “Meet the Press” swiftly followed. “Rand did ‘Good Morning America’ today, set the record straight, and now we’re done talking about it. No more national interviews on the topic,” said his campaign spokesperson.

In the long history of the iconic program, only two other invited guests – Louis Farrakhan, and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan – had ever cancelled.

On the Sunday morning talk shows the Republican leadership gamely pushed the there’s-a-silver-lining-here approach. Michael Steele, while admitting to some discomfort with Paul’s initial comments about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, declared he and Paul “are on the same page [and] our party stands foursquare about moving forward on civil rights looking at the civil rights issues of the day.”

Such comments, however, can’t whitewash Rand Paul’s true beliefs nor his willingness to cover the less-respectable ones with ritual expressions of good will. And Paul’s words this week have exposed as never before the most distasteful aspects of libertarianism, the philosophy that provides the intellectual fuel for the Tea Party movement: One of the most succinct – and damning – explorations of it can be found in New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s exploration of its various philosophical strands. Douthart clearly meant to paint a sympathetic portrait. At one point he says “there’s a lot to admire about this unusual constellation of ideas. But his listing of several of its fundamental defects does just the opposite. They underscore its profound ideological rigidity and callousness. Libertarians’ professed allegiance to “small government” and “individual freedom” is actually antithetical to the workings of a modern democratic society. That posture is in reality just a cover for individual selfishness and “government” only for those who have the power to manipulate it.

Certainly, Paul revealed – again — that when it comes to protecting citizens from discrimination, libertarianism favors a policy of governmental benign neglect that would leave the targets of discrimination stranded in a vast, turbulent sea of injustice.

In fact, the Tea Party isn’t a political party but a grievance movement. Its adherents have no exalted, or even positive, vision of American life. Their slogan, “Taking our country back” means just that: taking America back from those non-white Americans who’ve had the temerity to claim their full citizenship rights and taking America back to the days when private businesses, and federal, state and local governments, too, could discriminate against whomever they wanted to with impunity.

Their rough-hewn way of pushing that message, however, has caused them significant harm. That Rand Paul and his advisers felt it necessary to swiftly move to damage-control mode is a clear indication even they realize that when it comes to being honest with the American people, they’re still not ready for prime time.

Lee A. Daniels is Director of Communications for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.; and Editor-in-Chief of TheDefendersOnline.