The Democrats base a successful campaign on simply running on criticism of Country and opponents and have never, ever presented themselves as visionary or problem-solvers or leaders.

Twenty five years or so of the big noise machine in your ear and I guess you really do believe that.

It was fun to watch the bulging vein in Rudy’s head as he savaged Mr. Paul for daring to point out our enemies have reasons for what they do and perhaps we should take that into consideration when formulating strategy.

While it is comforting to think of Bin Laden as pure evil, there is a reason there have been no major attacks since 9/11. Not sure what his stratgey is expected to achieve, but I do know he is executing one.

Hearing Colnel Kurtz describe the will it takes to hack of a child’s arm because your sworn enemy innoculated it and to simply hear the evil and ignore the calculation is foolish.

Driving two planes into two of the largest symbols of capitalism is one of the boldest tactical moves in military history.

Countering such foes by making a larger offshore prison is worse than useless, it is crimially stupid.

Sending 150,000 men to a country that you know needs 500,000 men to begin to stabilize it is the worst example of weakness.

George Bush doesn’t have the guts to declare total war and to ask serious sacrifice to fight these men. You know it, and I know it.

Cut our loses, rebuild our forces and get ready to do it again.

Soon.

You mentioned in this piece that the Democrats might err and ” fail to articulate a positive message that will give the people an idea of what kind of country they want the United States to be.”

Now, you don’t really expect that do you??!!

I mean, think about it. The Democratic campaign, whether it is Clinton, Gore or Obama will NEVER reveal what their vision of the country is - they actually never do. They deal in the vagure, in hyperbole. A distinct picture of Higher Taxes, More Governmental Control, More Murder of the Unborn, Soft on Crime, Gun Control….well, that Truth doesn’t lead to votes.

The Democrats base a successful campaign on simply running on criticism of Country and opponents and have never, ever presented themselves as visionary or problem-solvers or leaders.

This is a debate that we need to have. I’m sorry that the moderators shut down that portion of the debate by changing the subject. Ron Paul needs to participate in more of these debates so that this debate can be continued. I think it would be good for the American people for that debate to be continued. The American foreign policies that Dr. Paul brings up needs to be evaluated within their context. The inherent evil nature of the brand of Islam that is practiced by our enemies needs to be discussed. It seems to me that the evil nature of the brand of Islam that our enemies practice along with a variety of American foreign policy adventures that clearly seem to have been unjust and wrong have all combined to create a “perfect storm” of sorts. For pointing out how the sometimes less than perfect American foreign policy has influenced our enemies, within a group of die hard Republicans took courage on the part of Dr. Paul. I applaud him for doing so.

To Dr. Paul, I would say “hang in there.” More Conservatives are with you than you realize. You alone have had the courage to stick to the traditional Conservative position on most areas. For this, you deserve a great deal of credit and I hope you get the nomination. Unfortunately I’m not holding my breath waiting for this to happen. I suspect the Repbulicans will try and shut you down. Do not be intimidated. While I do not agree with you on every thing, your stance for limited government is just what we need. Please continue to fight the good fight.

Watching the debates and watching the campaigns of all of the candidates makes for great theater. It is VERY entertaining, however, we CANNOT allow ourselves to become distracted. The enemies we are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan pose a major national security threat to the United States. This is going to be the case no matter who wins the Presidential race and it will continue to be the case no matter who controls Congress after the next election.

When Dr. Paul said, to roughly paraphrase, “we need to talk to our enemies,” “we need to trade with them,” etc. and goes on to point how we are now doing this with Vietnam and how we are now on friendly terms with this country who we once fought a long bloody war against, he articulately stated the exact foreign policy that most of the American people want. Most Americans will also agree with him, when he said the US should “avoid entangling alliances.” What the so called “hawks” in the Republican party do not seem to grasp is Dr. Paul’s stances with reagrds to American foreign policy are more in line with what the American people want than with what they want.

The challenge to the “hawks” is to formulate a foreign policy that has a chance to work and that will be accepted by the American people. The current polices in Iraq, especially, are unsustainable and they are probably unworkable. Even if we could maintain our force levels there or increase them, the American people will not support it. The “hawks” wo make up the so called “right” will need to find another policy. I have already suggested withdrawing from the Middle East and securing the homeland. Most Americans do not want our troops in the Middle East and their citizens do not seem to want our troops in their countries either. The sooner we are out of Iraq the better.

From what I saw last night, not only did Ron Paul win the debate, he should get the Republican party nomination. If the Repbublicans expect to win the next election, they will need to out flank the Democrats on the Iraq war and on impeachment. They should take the lead on getting US troops out of Iraq and on getting this President impeached.

But I guess expecting Guiliani to have actually read the report is asking too much, since he’s got that busy schedule of lobbying for corrupt companies and looking for jobs for Bernie Kerik.