Either Allen West or the NRA Needs to Go Away

Former Congressman Allen West is running to unseat Wayne LaPierre as head of the National Rifle Association. It is way past time for LaPierre to be put out to pasture, but it is way past time for conservatism to excommunicate Allen West. He is a grifting parasite on the conservative movement and if he leads the NRA someone will need to put a pillow over the NRA and put it out of its misery.

West is a failed former congressman who served one term before voters tossed him. He provided cover for John Boehner to break his promised budget cuts of $100 billion. He also voted against the Keystone XL pipeline and drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR. Perhaps most famously, West notoriously ran his own congressional re-election into the ground, losing by just 2000 votes having ignored troves of competent advice.

West left Congress and headed to PJMedia. He left there under a cloud of allegations related to sexual harassment and calling a female staffer a “Jewish American Princess.” He then cashed in on his fame as a black conservative by helming the National Center for Policy Analysis, which he promptly crashed into the ground. His own staff sued him for fiduciary improprieties as CEO.

Under West's leadership, the NCPA hired a chief financial officer who was already on probation for embezzlement and who then dismantled the organization's fiscal controls.

The CFO (who is now in prison) embezzled more than $600,000 from the NCPA.

The NCPA was the think tank that came up with Health Savings Accounts and the Roth IRA. Allen West ran it into the ground, according to the institution.

West ultimately decided to orchestrate the ouster of one of Texas’s most competent Republican Party chairmen. Once he assumed the position of chairman of the Texas GOP, he tried to use it as a base of operations to challenge Texas Governor Greg Abbott in a primary — from failed former Florida congress to would be Texas Governor.

West, again, failed.

Having left a wake of destruction and allegations behind him, West now wants to take over the NRA, which is already going through its own serious difficulties. If he is successful, given his track record, perhaps we can be rid of both Grift, Inc. and the Grifter-in-Chief.

The conservative movement should be done with Allen West.