At Tuesdays Republican Party debate, Texas Rep. Ron Paul turned a few heads by suggesting that *gasp* interventionist American foreign policy breeds the kind of resentment that leads to terrorist attacks on the U.S. Quoting Reagan, Paul advocated avoiding the “irrational politics of the Middle East,” cited our overthrow of Mossadegh in ’53 as a cause for the Iran hostage crisis of ’79, and generally pointed out the downsides to self-righteous crusading in that part of the world. The only answer to this line of critique came from a blustery Rudy Giuliani, who postured for the crowd by tapping into his “I lived through 9/11” mystique, and now it turns out that many Republicans would rather not have to go through such an unpleasant experience again.

Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican party, has announced that he is circulating a petition to ban Paul from future Republican debates, proving once and for all the fact that these are really debates in name only. It is a sad commentary that a party which has lost touch with it’s ideological roots, and is on an electoral losing streak cannot seriously debate foreign policy amongst themselves without inciting an ideological purge. Those of us who would like to see a return to sanity in the Republican party (and some who don’t really) may not necessarily see Paul as the person to bring change about, but his voice in debates is absolutely crucial.

What do you think? Sign the meaningless online petition of your choice!

Kick him off (no link, RNC members only) . Keep him on. Make Rudy debate him one-on-one. Send him to the Daily Show where he’ll be appreciated.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 10:32 by Niedermeyer and is filed under Elections, National, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.