Here we go again, not ignoring Ron Paul

Don't worry about the Ron Paul people -- they'll find something to complain about in these last glorious days before the reality of the actual primary/caucus voting starts, even though it can't be about being ignored by the big media anymore.

The 72-year-old, 10-term Republican representative from Texas with the libertarian ideas has been on just about every conceivable broadcast outlet in recent times. He's getting so much attention he's now starting to be criticized for some things, including accepting funds from and not returning them to some white supremacists.

That's what raising $18 million in the still unfinished fourth quarter ($6+ million of it in one day) will do to your political obscurity. That and the online and local meet-up group work by thousands of fervent fans who profess to be newcomers to the political process, so inspired are they by the ob-gyn who represents the Galveston area and his strict constitutionalist ideals and the simple clarity of his goal to return government to its strict constitutional boundaries. No more Department of Education, for instance, or many other federal departments.

Paul is on a roll, up in some polls, down significantly in others, which Paul people don't care anything about because they say they don't believe in polls because nobody's going to tell them how to vote, even though polls aren't orders for anybody, they only reveal how a few hundred people say they're going to vote at that moment in time.

Because everybody Ron Paul supporters say they talk to either already are or immediately become Ron Paul supporters, they believe the Ron Paul Revolution will sweep the country sometime shortly into the New Year, starting perhaps in New Hampshire where they have so many yard signs and the license plates say "Live Free or Die." Also, the new Ron Paul blimp is flying around there.

Anyway, today was Ron Paul's turn to be waterboarded by Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press." As one sign of how the Iraq war surge's recent success has made it a non-issue, Russert didn't even ask him about his stand (Paul's the lone GOP candidate who opposes the war, saying it creates much more trouble than it's worth and that maintaining an empire always bankrupts the colonial power).

Paul wants to bring home all American troops abroad to save money and avoid making ....

enemies. Russert asked him how many U.S. troops there are abroad. Paul didn't know. Russert told him 572,000. "And you'd bring them all home?"

"As quickly as possible. We -- they will not serve our interests to be overseas. They get us into trouble. And we can defend ourselves without troops in Germany, troops in Japan. How do they help our national defense? Doesn't make any sense to me. Troops in Korea since I've been in high school?"

Russert asked, "So if Iran invaded Israel, what do we do?"

Paul replied, "They're not going to. That's like saying, 'Iran is going to invade Mars.' "

Russert asked if Paul would cut off aid to Israel. "Absolutely," he said. "But remember the Arabs would get cut off too and the Arabs get three times as much aid altogether as Israel. But why, why make Israel so dependent?"

Russert asked if Paul wanted to abolish the IRS and income tax. "That's a good idea," he said. "I like that idea." He said the U.S. got along fine without an income tax until 1913.

Russert asked if he knew how much lost government revenue that would be. "A lot," said Paul. "Over a trillion dollars," said Russert. "That's good," said Paul. He suggested cutting spending would save a lot of money, reducing federal departments, not being involved overseas as we are.

Russert asked him about the apparent inconsistency of being against federal involvement, yet regularly inserting dozens of earmarks into legislation representing billions of federal dollars going to his district. Paul said there was no inconsistency because he always voted against the earmarks he'd inserted, although they usually passed.

"If you were true to your philosophy," Russert said, "you would say, 'No pork spending for my district.' "

"No, no, that's not it," replied Paul. "They steal our money. That's like saying people shouldn't take Social Security money."

Russert asked about term limits. Paul said he'd voted for them many times. Russert noted he'd been in Congress more than 18 years. Paul said he hadn't agreed to any voluntary term limits, but he supported them.

Russert asked about many other things including whether defeat in the GOP primaries might cause Paul to launch a third-party effort. "I have no intention to do that," Paul responded. But he would not guarantee it, just said he was 99.9% sure but didn't like absolutist statements.

Paul supporters will say anything that sounds critical or dumb about their candidate was taken out of context. So you can read the entire interview transcript here and view the entire video here.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[Todd Schuller]

Andrew, thanks for the article. I know you can't admit that you like the guy, liberal myself. Keep up the good work, your reaching us from the left. RP08

[Evan D]

Keep up the Ron Paul columns.
Mitt cries, Huck insults religion by using it as a campaign slogan, Rudy remains sick, Tancredo quits, Fred sleeps and Ron Paul raises $6 million dollars in one day (and triumphson MTP). Except for Dr. Paul, "[t]here's not a dime's worth of difference between" Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats willingly went along with the War in Iraq, suspension of Habeas, banning books like "America Deceived' from Amazon, warrant-less wiretapping and the PATRIOT ACT. They are both guilty of treason.
Time to take sides, fellow patriots, you're either for liberty and Support Dr. Ron Paul or you're against liberty and damn us all.
Final link (before Stark County DIstrict Library bends to pressure and drops the book):
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-38523-0

[Chad Spence]

You're absolutely right. We don't care what others say about him or what polls show. George Bush can get up in front of the camera and tell people how good the economy is but everyone knows, almost in a sixth sense way, that things aren't right. The same is true with Dr. Paul. Everyone, whether a supporter or not, knows he is absolutely obliterating the competition. If you go by fundraising alone, he enjoys more support now, than John Kerry had after he was annointed as the Democratic nominee. AOL is currently running it's own supposedly spam proof "straw poll" and Ron is winning in all but four states.

[immigrant]

Ron Paul took Russert to school with ease. Plain and simple. Russert should have done his research on the functions of congress, also he made a really strange amateurish mistake of thinking the civil war was actually about slavery, which for the most part it wasn't.

Im a black immigrant by the way.

[Edward]

Say what you will, but Ron Paul has made you a star.

[Rob L]

Good article... Most of the coverage doesn't take the time to fully explain Ron Paul's answers to these questions, questions which couldn't be fully answered in 10 second sound bytes, but I think you did a good job.

You purposely injected some of your own opinions into the article, but at least you provide the reader with most of the content you're reporting on. I don't particularly like the title, but you have a lot more talent than most of the blogs I read on this site.

My only advice is to tone down the sarcasm. It has a place in journalism, but it tends to reflect badly on the writer by taking away a level of professionalism.

Good night, and good luck...

[1440 minutes]

Andrew,

Tim Russert was tough as usual, and Ron Paul did a fine job. We love Ron Paul because of his fabulous message, not because of his oratory or debating skills. Some Ron Paul supporters might be thin-skinned, but most of us are great regular people. Peace.

[Lucia SChmitz]

You are obsessively angry at Ron Paul and his voters. If you didn't give a hoot about him and think he is going to loose by a landslide why even bother to right such a long article about him. But deep inside of you, you fear that what ever you preach you might be wrong.
Win or loose, Ron Paul has started a movement in the country and that is the important thing here. There is a Confucian Sayings: Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

[Matthew]

As long as this bad writing helps your ego, keep going!
You just aren't very good.

[Patty]

Mr. Malcom,

I wish you would write an editorial piece clarifying your opinions about Ron Paul. When I read your articles, I get the impression you dislike this candidate and his supporters but try and disguise your contempt for the sake of objectivity. Is objectivity that important? Those of us who wish to gain perspective on the Ron Paul Revolution and consider intelligent, dissenting opinions would appreciate your subjective analysis. This article presents itself as "objective" but still has a slant (in that it emphasizes Dr. Paul's ostensible stumbling points in the Russsert interview and does not mention his triumphs). That amounts to confusion, because your motivation in drawing the bias remains unclarified.

What is so interesting about Dr. Paul's wish to eliminate the Department of Education, for example? You mention it without comment. Do you think that's radical and negligent or a reasonable reaction to the utter lack of success in that department over the last 27 years? I would value your insight here.

In my opinion Tim Russert's "waterboarding" (as you call it) is reprehensible, because, again, it creates confusion. In a normal interview, the intention is to give people a chance to understand the views of the interviewee. Russert rapid-fires accusations without offering enough time for response. How does the audience benefit from this weird format? How do voters benefit from seeing candidates' characters attacked, often with accusations of dubious substance and credibility, in a situation where their mouths are for the most part effectively tied shut, so they are defenseless? I would argue that the whole truth has very little chance of seeing the light of day on Mr. Russert's show. And to the extent that the expression of truth is limited, the show is worthless, except in producing a cheap thrill of a sensationalized story.

If these are the shoddy means by which America seeks to assess the integrity of those seeking its leadership, no wonder it picks the wrong guy so often.

[Mark, Pasadena, CA]

I just want to know one thing, if any journalist is honest and courageous enough to say it. Let's look at something: Ron Paul - never has there been a campaign that raised so much money solely from individual donors - no corporate, no PAC money, none of it. It's plain Americans giving as best they can because they actually believe in someone. This is what we are always told politics should be about. This is what we always hear would be the ideal. This is a great American, democratic story. Anyone who believes in the ideals that we were brought up with - government of, by, and for the people - should be weeping with joy. And yet, with the exception of a few recent articles here in the LA Times and some other minor publications, no one has much of anything good to say about it.

Why?

[Scott Frost]

I would appreciate it if L.A. Times writers would not generalize about Ron Paul's supporters as if we are the Borg and of one mind. We did not all take offense at Tim Russert's interview, though most of us understood the issues being discussed better than the average viewer.

All we ask is that Tim Russert be equally tough with every candidate. Unlike other candidates, Ron Paul got no softball questions. That's okay. More time to answer the questions would have been nice, though.

What difference does it make, exactly, how many troops there are overseas?! There are tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed in over 125 countries around the world and they should not be there. That's quite simple to understand. The number of troops based overseas should be zero.

Do you need to know exactly how many people were murdered in Los Angeles last year to know that murdering people is wrong and the number should be zero?

Ron Paul understands that government IS coercion and, the less coercion a society has in it, the happier and more prosperous it will be.

What I want to know is why do so many people in the mainstream media love government so much? (And, consequently, dislike Ron Paul. The tone in the above article betrays a deep loathing by the author of Ron Paul and, frankly, his supporters.)

[Tom Mathers]

I am 58. We have had a military presence in Korea my entire life. We have had one in Europe since before I was born. I spent a year in Vietnam, when we had a presence there. Why? Why can’t it just end? There is peace in Europe; certainly not because we are there but because those people got tired of war after war. Some hotspots in the traditionally volatile Balkans remain; not our problem, their problem. If there are Americans who feel so strongly about foreign issues that they want to fight then I say let them. Get a plane ticket, ship some guns to your “glory dream spot,” and party down with the folks you disagree with. But don’t expect some overreaching president who has cowed the congress into submission to send other peoples children to enforce your pathetic anti-American loyalties.

[skullfinders]

Another Word To Americans

This is Steven Douglas Elwood, I have spoken to you before about Ron Paul. Many people criticize what the man is saying. All he is saying about the government programs to be abolished, is that they should be handled on a state or local level. Another thing, non-intervention is not the same as isolationalism.
If we reduce the Federal Government and give the power back to local and state agencies. We will save billions of dollars that are wasted by giant bureaucracies. So many politicians and big corporations will loose Federal subsidies as well as political swaying power for government programs. A lot of people are going to fight tooth and nail so they can still suck millions of dollars off the Federal tit. The true American will fight for individual rights and tell the Federal Government we can govern ourselves on a local level. Remember private industry and free market competition is the greatest innovator. Ron Paul is the only man in the 2008 presidential election that stands for freedom and equality for all, which made America the strongest country on earth, financially and militarily.
Now big corporations and the behemoth bureaucracy called the Federal Reserve and many others are destroying our country and our individual freedoms as well as the value of the American dollar. If we do not return to the framework that our country was founded on, we are facing imminent doom. We are not the FEDERAL EMPIRE of AMERICA...We are a republic.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

My fellow countrymen and fellow patriots, I beseech you to join with me and vote for Ron Paul. This is our last chance to take our country back from these bureaucracies.

GOD BLESS AMERICA

Steven Douglas Elwood

[Robert Moore]

You come off as it's a bad thing that Paul didn't know the exact amount of money collected from the Income tax or the exact number of soldiers that the US has in it's 700 bases overseas.

Numbers are for clerks, not leaders. We all know that the nimbers are huge so whether it's $1.1 Trillion in income tax or 526,047 soldiers is makes no difference.

BTW, our natioanl debt sits at around $60 Trillion (that's about $200,000 for every US citizen)

[John Vaughn]

Andrew, I'm a Ron Paul fan, but you were right about this interview. I had been looking forward to it all week, and he blows it by not being prepared. "Alot"... "I don't know"... What kind of answers are these? He should have had answers ready. Although I would have to say not knowing the numbers is more important if you are asking for a reduction in force versus just bringing them all home. Overall, I think this interview with Ron Paul is what you get when candidates are not completely scripted and staffers aren't writing your every word. Thanks for the article.

[Koh Choon Lin]

Once again, a MSM had ridden Ron Paul off the election. How many more times do I have to read articles writting off his chances?

[bkusz]

Poor Andrew, after the elections and all the Ron Paulers are gone to bed, Andrew will be back to his dozen readers or so...

Never thought you could be so popular Andrew.

By the way Andrew, who's your man/woman/other in the Election?

No Comment?

[Emmett]

Ah, the kind of journalistic excellence we have come to expect from the LA Times. Now, I think Ill go shower a few more times.

[Virginia B.]

This article is not the sweetness and light I'm sure many of us Paul supporters would love to see, but it's certainly fair. I appreciate your continued coverage of Paul, Mr. Malcolm.

[Ward Ciac]

Hey, Dr Paul isn't perfect. But he shot down most of what Russert threw at him. He's also the only candidate with honesty and integrity. The others all have scandals and like to flip flop.

[bob a]

the headline says it all

it is negative, right andrew?

a new term in american politics is now emerging

ron paul's mesage will resonate for a century

i am declaring my self

a ron paul republican!

ron may lose the election but his message will eventually win the war

[jack]

It is not the "We the People" Ron Paul campaign that is irrelevant as you try to say... it is "You the KOWTOWING media" that is truly irrelevant. Save a tree and just get with the program at least the one you may understand... 18,000 dollars can't all be wrong.

[Lonnie Randall]

I am excited about Ron Paul because this is the first time in my fifty years that I have heard someone talk about restoring the America that we were taught about as school children. It only really existed in our imagination but we still believe in it.

My fear is that the people behind the military industrial complex that Dr. Paul talks about will never allow this movement to turn back the clock on the globalist advances they have made over the past century plus. If they cannot marginalize this movement with the msm, they will kill him.

Am I being impatient? I am wondering why you would not post this comment.

Is truth not allowed at your blog?

[Dale Legan]

Ron Pauls earmarks sure were not "pork barrel". To fix the only bridge on and off Galveston Island and to fix up a port in Texas City that is one of the few places to make Jet Fuel for the Military.

The Galveston Causway was in bad trouble. Can you imagine a hurricane comming and the thing collapsing so no one could get off of the Island.

Tough Questions I appreciate. TR did that but he also twisted the truth , avoided issues , changed subjects without giving the Dr. time to fully respond ect.

Ron Paul did great and hit it out of the park when dealing with this intellectual deciever.