A Libertarian in the White House?

David Weigel | September 4, 2007

Here's Hugh Hewitt, movement man and proud Mitt Romney backer, interviewing Ron Paul at the Texas Straw Poll. (It happened over the weekend and Paul came in third place. You might not have been paying attention.)

Hewitt's got a distinctive, sometimes off-putting interview style: Pugnacious, heavy on questions that regular campaign reporters don't ask (especially about legal philosophy). He only follows up if he thinks he's uncovered something interesting. Here, it's the Paul's claim didn't support George W. Bush for president in 2000 and 2004. I double-checked it and it's true. Even in 2000, Paul was the only one of then 13 House Republicans from Texas who didn't officially endorse Bush. (I say "even" because Paul occasionally tips his hat to Bush for saying our foreign policy should be "humble" in his debates with Al Gore.) He was only serving his second term in the House since his 1996 comeback run, but by that point the Texas GOP had stopped seriously gunning for him. And the de facto leaders of the party were Bush and Rove, who had better things to worry about than rounding up one congressman's endorsement. You'd have to say that Paul's stature has increased since then. UPDATE: In the comments, Eric Dondero recalls Paul endorsing Bush in 2000, albeit after the rest of the GOP delegation had done so. I missed that when I checked old articles so I've struck that part of the post.

The answers on judicial review and the Osama bounty-hunt-plan are worth hearing, too.