Mount Rudy Erupts

"Giuliani's outrage at Ron Paul is the kind of Republican indignation usually reserved for straw men, for caricatures of the Democratic view that US national security interests are best served not just by a strong military deterrent, but also through multilateralism, political engagement, public diplomacy, a commitment to human rights and economic development, and the rest of what used to be known, before the sainted Gipper, as the bipartisan consensus on American foreign policy. What Giuliani did, in effect, was to borrow Falwell's attack on liberals and aim it at Ron Paul."

Coming to Paul's defense, however, is Andrew Sullivan:

"The conservative pundits are now referring to Ron Paul as a 'crackpot.' Hannity predictably savaged him. The Hewitt site has an image of a man in a tin-foil hat; Dean Barnett and Hugh Hewitt both call for removing Paul from the debates, when he has been the best thing about them so far. Bill Benett wants him out. I'm getting the usual ridicule for taking him seriously from the usual GOP apparatchiks. They're scared, aren't they?

"The Internet polls show real support for him. Fox News' own internet poll placed him a close second, with 25 percent of the votes from Fox News viewers. We have a real phenomenon here - because someone has to stand up for what conservatism once stood for. Whether you agree with him or not ( and I know few outside doctrinaire libertarians who agree with everything he says), he has already elevated the debates by injecting into them a legitimate, if now suppressed, strain of conservatism that is actually deeper in this country than the neoconservative aggression that now captures the party elite and has trapped the U.S. in the Iraq nightmare.

"Tuesday night, Fox News tried to destroy him. Today the right-wing blogs will. My view is that the Beltway has this wrong again."

New York Sun columnist Ryan Sager is not exactly a Paul fan:

"For all those getting really excited about anti-war, libertarian Republican Ron Paul, it's worth noting that he's pretty racist and also an anti-Semite.

"The Houston Chronicle story linked above contains quotes from a newsletter Mr. Paul put out in the 1980s and 1990s. It includes quotes referring to blacks as crime-prone and 'fleet-footed.'

"Mr. Paul also wrote that 'By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government' and that the goal of the Zionist movement is to stifle criticism."

That's mild copared to this posting by Eric Dondero, who declares his candidacy against Paul:

"I am making this announcement on my favorite website RedState.com. Many of you here have urged me to take this course. And now, after last night's GOP Presidential debate, I've decided to move ahead with my plans.

"I have spent the early morning scanning the major political blogs, and news sites. It's unanimous. Ron Paul got slammed by Rudy Giuliani Tuesday night for suggesting that we - the United States of America - are to blame for the attacks on 9/11. He even had the audacity to cite Osama bin Laden.