”Phill Dave, Yes, Ron Paul did vote to authorize the use of force in Afghanistan. That was only after his Staff, mainly me, GOT DOWN ON OUR HANDS AND KNEES AND BEGGED AND PLEADED WITH HIM TO DO SO!!!
I, his Top Staffer, threatened to resign on the spot if he didn't vote to invade Afghanistan.
Ron Paul was smart enough to know that it literally would have been political suicide in this South Texas District if he hadn't done so.
You should have been there. There's an amazing story about that time in the Ron Paul office, for some enterprising reporter. It was agonizing for all involved.
It was at that point, me having to beg Ron to vote to fight the Taliban and Al Queda in Afghanistan, that I lost virtually all respect for the man.
I had been with him through thick and thin, campaigning with him through 40 states in his 1988 Libertarian Presidential effort as his Personal Travel Aide.
I had dropped my life in Tallahassee, Florida and pulled up and moved to Texas to run his Congressional Campaign in 1995/96.
And there was a man who could have cared less that 3,000 of his fellow countrymen had just been brutally murdered in the flames of 9/11.
Sickening. I was absolutely sick to my stomach over his dithering of whether or not to invade Afghanistan.
Fortunately at the very last minute, and after two other Top Staffers begged and pleaded with Ron, he reluctantly voted for the resolution.“