If nothing else, the debate [1] revealed Ron Paul is a blithering idiot.
Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years..
In that one line we now have a better understanding of why the Libertarian party has been the non-exsitant force for freedom that it’s been for 20 years. Paul exhibits a disconnection from reality of a level that people like Howard Dean have always claimed as their exclusive realm, previously.
Giuliani, to his credit, came back with:
….That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th.
Indeed. This speaks loudly to the point I made last night in the Ramble [2], as regards Schuler’s post at OTB; That our being in the area hasn’t a damned thing to do with our being attacked; they’d have attacked us, for idological reasons in any event. The prospect of having anyone in the White House who can’t grasp this kind of basic logic, is frightening… and is exactly what has caused me of the last few years to be so violently anti-Democrat party.
Indeed; Ron Paul is engaging in what the Democrats have always seemed to be best at before; Blaming America. I can’t imagine that the left isn’t pleased by what they see in Ron Paul… a fellow traveler.
As a person with libertarian tendencies, I’m publicly begging Ron Paul to shut up, put that traffic cone on your head and go stand in the corner. You’ve damaged our cause… the cause of freedom… long enough.
Byron York [3] has more at NR, this morning.
Paul didn’t back down, but by cutting in, Giuliani had scored some of the best, and perhaps easiest, points of the night. So much so that advisers from rival campaigns couldn’t quite hide their frustration that Giuliani had moved so quickly. “I don’t think it takes a lot of courage to use Ron Paul as a prop,” said Charlie Black, the longtime GOP strategist who is backing Sen. John McCain. “But he [Giuliani] got his 9/11 credential in there, so congratulations.”
Black is correct; it doesn’t take much courage to speak out against Ron Paul, particularly when he starts talking like a Democrat. Just a grasp of reality.
Addendum:
The smartass reply would have been to ask Paul whether, if in fact conditions in Iraq precipitated 9/11, it wasn’t perfectly appropriate then to take extreme measures to try to remedy those conditions afterwards. A more thoughtful response would have been to ask him what his studiously noninterventionist “constitutional” option would have been when Saddam invaded Kuwait. But that’s all gravy; Rudy’s answer suffices as an expression of the palpable disgust most Americans (or at least most conservatives) felt at that moment for that Bircheresque crank, which is why he got the reaction he did. You can hear Mitt at the end over the din demanding that Rudy not be given the extra 30 seconds he requested, and with good reason — he might have walked away with the nomination right there.
Yeah, I’m just as glad that didn’t happen. But there’s a lesson for the Democrats here, too… The disgust for those who blame America is running high. Where does that leave the Democrats?
Son of addendum:
Ace points up that Paul’s been spweing this stuff for quite a while [5].