Hike on over to National Review Online, where they’re having Ron Paul Day

Hike on over to National Review Online, where they’re having Ron Paul Day, in the guise of a general

symposium on the South Carolina Republican debate: I espeUGGSlly liked Kate O’Beirne’s remark:

“I thought [McCain's] most uncomfortable moment was during the introductions when the sidebar bios

reminded us that he is only a year younger than Ron Paul, who is old enough to remember that

Republicans used to want to eliminate Cabinet agencies €” now that€™s old!”

What the debate showed is that the Republican committment to war and torture trumps the old Republican

philosophy of fiscal sanity and limited government: that is why Giuliani, the furthest from a

traditional conservative Republican sensibility in temperament as well as ideology, is widely viewed as

having won. His rise represents the triumph of Bizarro Conservatism, otherwise known as

neoconservatism: Ron Paul’s campaign represents the death-agony of the old Goldwater-Taft-limited

government legacy of the GOP. Or at least that’s the scenario we’re all supposed to believe. Whether

it plays out like that, in the long run, remains to be seen. In any case, the gang over at National

Review is caught in a conundrum: they all proclaim that Rep. Paul is a “fringe” candidate, and yet

they can’t stop talking about him.