I've been treating Ron Paul as mostly a curiosity since all of the hype started. I like his idea of a smaller, constitution-sized federal government, but I don't like how easy it is to set him up with questions like "You want to get rid of this?!?!" as if he wanted it abolished altogether, rather than just delegated to the state's governments.
As for the interview, I found Russert very annoying--he was constantly interrupting Ron Paul, and I thought his questions were really stretching to make RP sound bad. It bothers me that shows like this are attempting to misinterpret rather than make sense of things. The goal isn't greater understanding, but higher ratings.
Also, is that how he conducts all the interviews, or was he particularly hard on Ron Paul?
*added: to answer my own question, I watched clips from Guiliani, Romney, and Obama on MtP, and Russert was definitely nicer (though he was still asking kind of irrelevant questions in my opinion) Kind of annoying.
posted
I think meet the press was as fair to Ron Paul as they were to other candidates. Did you see the grilling Rudy took in his interview?
However, I was amused that they had to go back 20 years to get most of the quotes, and I think Paul defended himself quite well. I don't think it hurt him. But I don't think it will help him with people who don't know much about him.
Talking about the civil rights bill as a property rights issue may turn people off.
Best one liner: (too bad it is a position I disagree with)
quote: MR. RUSSERT: You say you're a strict constructionist of the Constitution, and yet you want to amend the Constitution to say that children born here should not automatically be U.S. citizens.
REP. PAUL: Well, amending the Constitution is constitutional. What's a--what's the contradiction there?
MR. RUSSERT: So in the Constitution as written, you want to amend?
REP. PAUL: Well, that's constitutional, to do it.
Murkiest water: When Ron Paul defended his position of putting earmarks in bills but votes against the appropriations process and any bill with earmarks in it.
quote:REP. PAUL: You got it completely wrong. I've never voted for an earmark in my life.
MR. RUSSERT: No, but you put them in the bill.
REP. PAUL: I put it in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back. But it doesn't cut any spending to vote against an earmark. And the Congress has the responsibility to spend the money. Why leave the money in the executive branch and let them spend the money?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, that's like, that's like saying you voted for it before you voted against it.
REP. PAUL: Nah! Come on, Tim. That has nothing to do with that.
MR. RUSSERT: If, if, if you put it in the bill and get the headlight back home...
REP. PAUL: No, I, I make the request. They're not in the bills.
MR. RUSSERT: ...and then you, then you know it's going to pass Congress and so you, you don't refuse the money.
REP. PAUL: Well, no, of course not. It's like taking a tax credit. If you have a tax credit, I'm against the taxes but I take all my tax credits. I want to get...
Most Unusual exchange:
quote:MR. RUSSERT: I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln. "According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery."
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war. No, he shouldn't have gone, gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic. I mean, it was the--that iron, iron fist..
MR. RUSSERT: We'd still have slavery.
REP. PAUL: Oh, come on, Tim. Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world. And the way I'm advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did. You, you buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years? I mean, the hatred and all that existed. So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war. I mean, that doesn't sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.
Most damaging quote exchange in my opinion:
quote:MR. RUSSERT: You're running as a Republican. In your--on your Web site, in your brochures, you make this claim: "Principled Leadership. Ron was also one of only four Republican Congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan for president against Gerald Ford in" '76. There's a photograph of you, Ronald Reagan on the right, heralding your support of Ronald Reagan. And yet you divorced yourself from Ronald Reagan. You said this: "Although he was once an ardent supporter of President Reagan, Paul now speaks of him as a traitor leading the country into debt and conflicts around the world. "I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration." And you go on to The Dallas Morning News: "Paul now calls Reagan a `dramatic failure.'"
REP. PAUL: Well, I'll bet you any money I didn't use the word traitor. I'll bet you that's somebody else, so I think that's misleading. But a failure, yes, in, in many ways. The government didn't shrink. Ultimately, after he got in office, he said, "All I want to do is reduce the rate of increase in size of government." That's not my goal. My goal is to reduce our government to a constitutional size. Completely different. I think that--matter of fact, he admitted in his memoirs that he had a total failure in Lebanon, and he said he relearned the Middle East because of that failure. And so there--he--you know, he...
It was an interesting interview. Man were the questions fired off fast. I like how Paul addresses each question without rehearsed answers or political correctness.
I will leave with why I like Paul--his foreign policy.
quote: MR. RUSSERT: So under your doctrine, if we had--did not have troops in the Middle East, they would leave us alone.
REP. PAUL: Not, not immediately, because they'd have to believe us. But what would happen is the incentive for Osama bin Laden to recruit suicide terrorists would disappear. Once we left Lebanon in the early '80s, the French and the Americans and Israelis left Lebanon, suicide terrorism virtually stopped, just like that. But while we were there, that was suicide terrorism killed our Marines, because we were in Lebanon. So we have to understand that.
...
Since we've been over there al-Qaeda has more members now than they did before 9/11. ...
MR. RUSSERT: It sounds like you think that the problem is al-Qaeda--the problem is the United States, not al-Qaeda.
REP. PAUL: No, it's both. It's both--al-Qaeda becomes the violent. It's sort of like if you step in a snake pit and you get bit, you know, who caused the trouble? Because you stepped in the snake pit or because snakes bite you? So I think you have to understand both. But why, why produce the incentive for these violent, vicious thugs to want to come here and kill us.
posted
The quotes you post bring up just how sophomoric Russert's questions are.
"You're a strict constitutionalist, and yet you want to amend it..."
"We'd still have slavery"
"It sounds like you think the problem is the United states, NOT Al-Quaeda"
They're all just full of lies and high school logical fallacies. And I would have liked to actually hear Paul's response to the "earmarks" debate, but Russert interrupted him every two seconds. Also, I felt like Russert's questions would go on forever, with 3 quotes and 3 questions, so that only the last question would be answered (or have time to be answered) and the other questions and quotes went unaddressed. It all just smacks of deceit.
Then again, I don't watch any of these shows (I don't have TV) so maybe this is how it always is. I get everything online.
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