Say what you will about PBS, but you won’t find ABC News spending 20 minutes talking to a Presidential candidate:
Here’s Part One:
And here’s Part Two:
A few thoughts:
- Woodruff asked Paul what he thought the interests of the United States that were worth defending and I don’t think he ever really answered the question. He spent a good deal of time talking about what’s wrong with American foreign policy, but never really answered her question directly. It’s a legitimate question, and it deserves an answer.
- It’s going to take a lot more than just cutting back on defense spending to fix what’s wrong with the economy and the Federal budget. Discretionary spending, which includes defense spending, is a small part of the budget compared to so-called non-discretionary spending — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Saying that we can solve our economic problems by cutting defense spending to the bone isn’t much different from what the rest of the candidates are saying. It’s note the warfare state that’s going to bankrupt us, it’s the welfare state. And it’s time the American people realized it. So far, Ron Paul is the only candidate who’s spoken that particular truth, and he’s in the single digits.
On the whole, this was a fairly good interview. And it’s refreshing to see Ron Paul talking about something other than the War in Iraq, because there’s a lot more than that to the freedom agenda.
Of course, since it was on PBS, it’s likely that more people will see the YouTube video than actually watched the broadcast.
