The American Conservative

… but don’t take him at his word.

It’s quite amazing to watch some of these guys trip over themselves to endorse torture. They think they’re GI Joe on stage before a Republican audience. Tancredo, a hero to some paleoids because of his anti-immigration stance, is as bad as the rest — no surprise, but it’s worth pointing out.

He’s not tacking any guff, facing down Giuliani over 9/11. Unfortunately, Ron Paul isn’t the most glib candidate, and he’s getting pushed by Giuliani and the Fox News neocon presenter. Truth hurts.

Though his phrasing could have been better, Paul has thrown a real wildcard into the debate. The others are all riled up about his response, his saying that U.S. interventionism has a whole heck of a lot to do with the terrorist threat.

Is it just my pro-Paul bias showing through, or is Paul getting many fewer questions than the rest of these guys? Rudy McRomney is benefiting from all the rebuttals he/they get to the other candidates’ criticisms of them, so perhaps that’s it.

As much as I hate to say it, Giuliani seems completely at ease, or as at ease as Giuliani ever gets. I suspect he’s the only one of the pack with a chance to win the White House. Of course, he’s the farthest thing from a conservative — he wouldn’t be out of place on the Democratic ticket. Is Rudy Ob-Hillary in the cards?

I see the Fox News shill is not (that not should have been a “now”) trying to bait Ron Paul. This is very stacked.

He’s pro-second-amendment (he says), but also pro-”assault weapons”-ban.  He’s also on both sides of every other issue — and this is how he positions himself in a debate!  I’ll have to link to the video for this, it’s egregious.

Liveblogging isn’t cool, but what the heck…

That’s what Giuliani said just now. Did he mean “wouldn’t” make a bad ticket, or was he really telling McCain and Romney not to think that he’d entertain them as VP candidates?  The crowd jeered, so they seem to have heard it as I heard it, but I’d be surprised if even Rudy had cojones like that.  He’ll issue a “clarification” afterward, I’m sure.

Of course, I agree that Rudy McRomney would make a bad ticket — any of ‘em, in any combination.

Watching the 2nd Republican debate right now. Ron Paul had a great comeback when an incredulous Fox New neocon host asked him if he would really abolish the Department of Homeland Security during (undeclared) wartime. Paul said yes, and pointed to the fact that all the information needed to catch the 9/11 terrorists was already available beforehand, but too much bureaucracy prevented them from being caught. Why, then, create a multi-billion-dollar new bureaucracy and think that that’s an improvement?

Next Wednesday (May 23, that is) at 7 pm in Washington’s, D.C.’s Lounge 201 (map) the Robert A. Taft Club will be holding a symposium on “The Religious Right and the Conservative Movement,” featuring Michael Tanner, Doug Bandow, and Jim Russell. We’ll not only be taking a look at the big picture of the relationship between religion and the right, but also at how the politics of Christian conservatism mingles with the issues of big government, immigration, and war. The Taft Club likes to keep things interesting.

The first half hour or 45 minutes is usually schmoozing and boozing, so don’t plan on the panel starting at 7 sharp. Goes until 10 pm. RSVP to Marcus Epstein if you plan to attend.

Alexis de Tocqueville, from Democracy in America Vol. 2, Part 2, Ch. 22 (Gerald Bevan’s Penguin Classics translation):

War does not always surrender democratic nations to military rule but it invariably and immeasurably increases the powers of civil government, into whose hands it almost unavoidably concentrates the control over all men and all things. If it does not lead to tyranny by sudden violence, it leads men gently there by habituation.

All those who wish to destroy freedom within a democratic nation should realize that the most reliable and the most rapid means of achiving it is war. That is the first principle of knowledge.

My review of John Patrick Diggins’s Ronald Reagan for Reason is now on-line. Check it out. There’s a comments thread here — am I indeed not critical enough? I may be going soft…

On another front, my Peter Viereck piece for The American Conservative isn’t out quite yet. I’ll give everyone a head’s up once it’s worked its way into print.

My review of American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia for Orion magazine is now on-line here. It’s completely different from my earlier review of the book for The American Conservative. I hasten to add that I did not work for ISI when I wrote either of the reviews…