Republican presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, answers questions in the spin room, following the Republican debate at University of South Carolina's Koger Center for the Arts, Tuesday, May 15, 2007, in Columbia, S.C. During the debate with the 10 Republican presidential hopefuls, Paul suggested that U.S. bombing of Iraq had contributed to the terrorist attacks of 2001.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Byron York sums up Ron Paul's bizarre comments at last night's debate.
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.”
To many people, however, it did appear that Paul blamed the U.S. for the attacks. A few feet away from where Paul was meeting reporters, Washington lawyer Ted Olson, at the debate to support his friend Rudy Giuliani, was taken aback at what he heard from Paul. “I find it personally offensive and very disturbing,” said Olson, whose wife Barbara died on September 11, “that an American, especially an American member of Congress, can say those things about what happened to cause 9/11.”
It all started when Paul was asked how September 11 changed American foreign policy. “Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us?” Paul answered. “They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for ten years…”
Questioner Wendell Goler, of Fox News, asked, “Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?”
“I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it,” Paul said. “They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there.”
Paul really threw himself off a cliff with that.
It's easy to imagine Paul sharing wacko 9/11 conspiracy nutjob theories with his kook brethren.
It seemed like he was at the wrong the debate. He would fit in better with the Democrats.
Paul is the very definition of what it means to "blame America first."
York ends his reflections on the debate and Paul's performance with this:
So in the end, the candidate who made a big move, who came out of nowhere to win new name recognition was…Ron Paul. But it’s probably not the sort of name recognition Republican presidential candidates want. “Wow,” said one adviser to a rival campaign after listening to Paul’s blame-America lecture. “I haven’t heard anything like that this side of Rosie O’Donnell.”
I think Ron Paul would be wise to bow out of the race now.
It might be a good idea to send his resume to Barbara Walters. There will be a seat open at The View soon that he could fill quite nicely.
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