Novak likes the idea of President Paul

Washington Times ^ | 7/31/07 | Eric Pfieffer

[traviskicks]

Bob Novak stopped by the Heritage Foundation today for a lunchtime discussion with conservative bloggers about his new professional autobiography, The Prince of Darkness. While he lamented the practice of reporters acting as opinion drivers and news analysts, Novak wasn't shy about offering a few opinions of his own. When asked to rate the current field of Republican presidential candidates, Novak didn't have any kind words for the current top-tier field of Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and John McCain.

[rineaux]

thanks for the ping.

[NCSteve]

I keep visiting these threads to see if the rabid GOP lemmings have any new drivel to spew. Every time, I am disappointed with the same old drivel:

We’re at WAR, you know? Ron Paul is Pat Buchanan. Ron Paul is a Nazi anti-Semite. Ron Paul will have us all converting to Islam or dying.

Living in a constant state of hysterical panic has to wear one out. I have no idea how the pubbie True Believers do it.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Ron Paul, endorsed by the Prince of Darkness!

LOL.

Now I'm worried.

[billbears]

Expedia isn’t a real encyclopedia. Anyone can write on it.

By gum that's why I ended up in Altoona. I knew I shouldn't have looked at those directions and took a left at Albuquerque....

[KoRn]

Aside from some foreign policy positions, I like the idea of a “President Paul” myself. I know it isn’t going to happen, so Run FRed Run!!

[elkfersupper]

We would not be in the UN very long if he was Prez.

You say that like it would be a bad thing.

[elkfersupper]

So you want to eliminate the married/single designation on federal tax forms? No benefits to spouses in gov’t or military? No federal law, benefit or recognition of any kind for marriage? What about First Lady? Shall we do away with First Lady?

All of that except the First Lady is fine with me.

If the President wants to hang out in my White House with a woman, that is fine with me.

[traviskicks]

yea, I thought so too, quite a piece of work, some people must have put some good effort into making that.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Okay, but you do realize that that President has a mother and a father, and that he became the man he is through their nuturing. You also realize that he and that woman he lives with had two daughters that needed care for at least 18 years. It is impossible to have limited government if families are not caring for their own children.

There must be some basic social structure or you will have chaos.

[elkfersupper]

Primarily for the same reason that shrinking government is impractical - too much of the economy is tied to the continued growth of foreign policy adventures.It has worked. I read an interesting Bovard column today which made the point(s) that the beast starving is really what (temporarily) ended Prohibition.

[George W. Bush]

Okay, but you do realize that that President has a mother and a father, and that he became the man he is through their nuturing. You also realize that he and that woman he lives with had two daughters that needed care for at least 18 years. It is impossible to have limited government if families are not caring for their own children. ... There must be some basic social structure or you will have chaos.

If you're saying "It takes a village to raise a child", you're on the wrong website. LOL.

What are you saying exactly?

[elkfersupper]

It is impossible to have limited government if families are not caring for their own children.

Federal government as mommy and daddy.

On Free Republic.

I just threw up a little.

[elhombrelibre]

”Ron Paul's personal pork projects. “

[George W. Bush]

"Ron Paul's personal pork projects."

I see you found a blog even more ignorant about earmarks and even more malicious toward Ron Paul than you are. Nice work.

What you and the blogger didn't discover is how Ron Paul always submits them as a constituent service but votes against them.

The only way one of RP's earmarks gets funded is if it is in the interest of the funding agency or members of the relevant committee to fund it.

Ron Paul doesn't work for earmarks, he doesn't make deals, he doesn't play politics. But he does submit them. Just as the Founders did in the early days of the Republic.

You do understand that the FReeper notion of "earmarks=pork" is just ignorant? As the Flake anti-earmark votes (19 including Bridge To Nowhere and the artificial Iowa rainforest) demonstrated, no one, least of all Ron Paul, believes earmarks should be eliminated entirely. If you do that, you basically put the entire federal budget into the hands of the bureaucracy which is even worse than politicians squabbling about it.

It is abuses of the earmark system that are bad, not the earmark provision itself.

[KoRn]

"Paul seems to be playing on both sides of the fence. He puts in the requests for the pork which becomes part of the budget. Then he votes against the appropriations bill. He knows that the vast majority of these spending bills will pass regardless of what he does. He can brag to shrimpers about the millions in subsidies which he earmarked for them, but he can also claim to have voted against the subsidies he guaranteed. It is one way to be all things to all people."

I find that to be very 'interesting'. Thanks for the heads-up on that.

[wideawake]

Right, but it doesn’t say what KIND of foreign policy to conduct. That issue is and always will be up for debate.

Then rather than asking silly questions as to whether the Constitution authorizes specific foreign policy expedients (like spreading democracy), you should acknowledge the truth of your own statement: that the Constitution does not restrict the Federal government from pursuing such a policy but leaves the details of foreign policy to the discretion of those it empowers to act.

[wideawake]

What you wrote, then, is different from what you are writing now.

Not in the slightest.

The truth is that this is a matter of degree. We can have trade without the level of foreign entanglement we have today.

Trade between our citizens and the citizens of foreign powers requires negotiations and arrangements with those powers.

[wideawake]

BTW, how well did that all work out in the end? That Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and Pearl Harbor thing, you know.

Well, I suppose if one takes Ron Paul's view: that people who live outside of America lack the human capacity to make their own moral decisions and that everything they do is simply an instinctual animal reaction provoked by America or Americans, then I guess one could deduce from such silly premises the preposterous conclusion that Commodore Perry was personally responsible for the crimes of a regime that did not even exist until he was 70 years in his grave.

[wideawake]

Actually you have it in reverse. If you want to extend, not reduce "external commerce," then you should support Ron Paul who consistently opposes trade embargoes and is a tiger for free trade.

Yet he opposes CAFTA and the WTO.

[dcwusmc]

Try reading the Tenth Amendment. If an authority is not specifically GRANTED, then it is prohibited to government. So, YES, it is prohibited.