Not Ready For Prime Time

As I write, I'm listening to the MSNBC rerun of the latest Republican debate. It ran live at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time, which for all I know might be when political junkies are most likely to be watching cable news. Nevertheless, it seems almost as if they had something to hide, or as if they were hoping most people would watch the rerun after the pundits had a chance to mold people's expectations. Maybe it was a kindness to Fred Thompson, who was making his competitive debut as a presidential candidate today.

In any event, the debate was meant to focus mostly on economic issues, which boiled down to Giuliani and Romney arguing over who cut taxes more in their former jobs. Somehow, someone remembered to ask Ron Paul about Iraq, which makes me think the news channels know that people are tuning in to see Paul rip into the war. He didn't disappoint here, adding to his repertoire warnings against invading Iran. He condemns the notion of preventative war, rightly calling it unconstitutional, but most of his rivals appeared to think that the Commander in Chief has gotta do what he's gotta do.

Before I go overboard about Ron Paul, let me remind everyone that he is a Libertarian who wants to bring back the gold standard. Worse, he appears to be a Christian Right Libertarian, which you would have thought was an oxymoron. For all that, he's probably the best the Republicans have, indisputably so on foreign affairs, but that just serves as a strong argument against voting Republican next year.