What Did Ron Paul Say?
From the Spin Room after last night's GOP "debate" in South Carolina, Byron York captures Ron Paul's reaction:
For a man who had just grabbed the spotlight in a nationally televised presidential debate, Ron Paul seemed a little, well, defensive. A few minutes after the debate ended here at the University of South Carolina, Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas, ventured into the Spin Room to talk to reporters, only to find that they wanted to know whether he really blamed the United States for the September 11 terrorist attacks.
“Who did that?” Paul snapped. “Who blamed America?”
“Well, your critics felt that you did.” “No, I blamed bad policy over 50 years that leads to anti-Americanism,” Paul said. “That’s little bit different from saying ‘blame America.’ Don’t put those words in my mouth.”
“But the policies were bad American policies?”
“We’ve had an interventionist foreign policy for 50 years that has come back to haunt us,” Paul continued. “So that’s not ‘Blame America’ — that’s demagoguing, distorting issues…That’s deceitful to say those kinds of things.”
James Joyner at OTB has the best commentary I've seen on this issue in this post. I'm not surprised at Paul's reaction to the spin, and I think the "American Idol" format is in part responsible, even though this one flowed better than the last. If this were really a "debate," Paul's point should be debated, not dismissed.
9 comments:
Of course if a democrat had spoken this truth the right wing blogs would be all over them for such unpatriotic comments.
All that Byron York is doing is characterizing Ron Paul in a bad way.
Are the so called media professionals deaf or impaired? It's obvious what Ron Paul was saying when he made his points, but the cheap shot was too much of a temptation.
"Do you really blame the United States for the September 11 terrorist attacks?"
A variation of:
"Have you beat your wife lately?"
Like the much of the media, Rudy Giuliani feigned ignorance. Never heard of cause and effect before!
Let's have a little intellectual honesty for a change. US Foreign Policy over the last 50-60 years has not been all about spreading peace and joy via parades and flower bouquets.
Ron Paul simply points out the uncomfortable truth, and people reject him for it.
-Ray, from the Net
Well, we set the foreign policy bar pretty low for China when they take over as The World's Only Superpower.
Maybe they'll knock a few billion off our debt for the favor.
We supporters of the War on Terror should be grateful to Paul for his deft undermining of one of the most common arguments against it: the one which claims that we're only stirring up ill will over there by our actions in Iraq (and presumably Afghanistan, though they tend to keep quiet about that). Not so, if we believe Paul; the ill will was already in place, and resulted from 50 years' worth of actions that can't be undone now. It's a sunk cost that we can safely ignore going forward. Thanks, Ron!
Thank you for this post. Yes, the debate format is American Idol but Rudy is going to say this garbage regardless of the format. I wish the Republican Party could have a few more people as honest as Ron Paul running in this race. Perhaps one of them would be both honest and not a loon. I hate to say this but Mr. Paul is the best of this pathetic lot of 10 losers. Rudy is the worst - by far.
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Andrew,
There is no debate, Paul is full of crap. The Liberty Civilization aka United States, has done more in history to bring more freedom to more people than any country on the planet. Women didn't have the right to vote in France until after WW2. The ignorance of your commenters is so leftist in nature, they hate the US for the same reason most of our enemies do, private property. The China superpower comment ROFL, maybe this form of communism will finally work! A Roman General 200 AD was asked why the Empire had not taken the entire Arabian peninsula, he remarked that there was little resource value and the people had this weird death culture, Rome would have to kill all the men. Osama's ancestors hated the United States before it even existed.
In February of 2003, Secretary of State Powell was treated to elaborate history lessons from the other member countries on the UN Security Council. When it was his turn he quipped, "The United States is a relatively young country, but we are the oldest democracy assembled here around this table." That is moral authority our critics don't have, and no right to judge us.
Fritz,
I would love to have the full quote from that Roman General. It is always interesting to see the persistance of certain cultural values in an area.
Perhaps a better question would have been: Who is in charge of auctioning off all the reposessed homes in California these days?
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