The big debate story is of course the Rudy-Ron dust-up, which by now you've probably seen or heard. If not it's here. The conventional wisdom seems to be that Mr. Rudy dusted Mr. Ron but I happened to catch some of Air America radio on the way to work and not surprisingly they had a different take. Other than calling the audience stupid for clapping at such a moment the "Young Turks" agreed with Paul that modern Republicans have lost their way. They pointed out that traditionally it's the Democrats who've supported interventionism while Repubs have sided with isolationism. It's hardly that simplistic anymore.
Most would consider North Korea a regional if not world threat, yet many now prefer to look back on Saddam as no threat whatsoever despite his actual use of force and WMDs. Paul lives in an America of the 40s where threats were mitigated by two oceans and we could afford to be isolationist. That ended with the development of the long range missile and the atom bomb (supplemented by various and sundry other diabolical weapons) and was definitely put to bed with the emergence of Islamic terrorism.
His myopic view tends to ignore any evil until it crawls up and bites him on the ass, at which point he feels justified in calling for war. Too bad, so sad if the attack kills a million. This is why noted Libertarian Neal Boortz tends to part ways with his mates on the issue of Islamic terrorism. Just because Texas was not attacked doesn't mean America wasn't, which is one reason Rudy blew a gasket.
Like it or not we depend on the world and the world depends on us--we can never again be isolationist. It just won't work. Therefore we've no choice but to reach out and protect our interests and those of whom depend on us. No, we've not always done the right thing and the CIA needs to be monitored but Paul seems to think protecting our interests equals a justification for an attack without judging the attackers.
There's no doubt in my mind that even if the Islamofascists didn't desire bunches of dead American infidels on their way to a world caliphate they would still be a huge problem in the region. Oil is not a luxury, it's a necessity just like water. We need to change that picture soon but it won't occur overnight and George W. Bush can't just wave a magic wand and make everything better.
Iraq was not interventionism in the classic sense it was about protecting our interests and about national security. If Bush was practicing the Democrats' version he would have invaded Sudan for "the children", in other words, some pseudo-socialist goal. That's not what he was doing. Too bad Paul can't see the difference.
By the way, it's surprising how few noticed that he blamed Clinton for 9/11. After all it was Slick who "bombed Iraq for 10 years", and it was Slick who prompted bin Laden's famous 1998 Fatwa to kill Americans everywhere.
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