Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, said yesterday that he is attempting to get GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul barred from participating in future debates because of comments Paul made suggesting that the September 11th attacks were the result of aggressive U.S. foreign policy.
Anuzis says he will circulate a petition to Republican National Committee members to ban Paul from debates. During the debate Tuesday night, Paul said:
“Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years.”
In response to this, Anuzis said that Paul’s remarks were “off the wall and out of whack,” and suggested that Paul would be better suited sharing a stage with Democrats than with Republicans.
Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign spokesman, said that Paul “is supporting the traditional GOP foreign policy. I think it’s a shame when people try to silence the traditional conservative Republican standpoint.”
This is a disturbing article for a number of reasons. For one, Ron Paul’s statement was absolutely correct, and the fact the GOP leaders are denying it just shows how really out of touch the GOP is becoming with reality. Second, the fact that the general public doesn’t know this — otherwise there would be outrage at Paul being criticized — shows how unfair and unbalanced ALL channels of mass media are; there isn’t one mass media outlet in the U.S. that tells the truth. And third, since when are presidential candidates silenced? Isn’t the point of a presidential debate to allow a candidate to express his or her ideas about how we can do better moving forward? So then, how can someone be silenced for expressing his or her ideas? Last I checked we hadn’t lost our free speech yet, although at the rate we’re going, you never know…
2 Comments
Ron ran several times as a Libertarian and I voted for him at least once. He should do the same now, since there’s no way he’ll get the Republican nomination.
I think that’s a good idea, but there are good and bad aspects to it. The public is fed up with both parties — Republican and Democrat — and I think Paul could greatly benefit by not being associated with either. On the other hand, participation in the Republican debates has given Paul a huge amount of exposure which I think he would have never gotten as a Libertarian. Unfortunately, it seems like it’s too little too late. A question I have though — I will admit ignorance here — is if Paul loses the Republican nomination can he still run as an independent?