Blowback from the Blowback Debate

Glad to see I'm not the only blogger who noticed Giuliani's dishonesty last night. Here's Andrew Sullivan:

Giuliani, interestingly, openly lied about Ron Paul's position on 9/11. Paul specifically did not make a statement, as Giuliani immediately claimed, that the U.S. invited 9/11. I rewound to double-check. It was the Fox questioner who ratcheted up the stakes on that question, not Paul. Paul demurred on a specific answer and switched the question to the general issue of blowback. As to who's right, the answer is both. Bin Laden—still at large and operating within the territory of Pakistan, an alleged ally which Cheney recently visited—both justified the 9/11 attack on those grounds but has a theology that doesn't require such a casus belli. But now he doesn't even need the theology. We have, alas, made more terrorists by our bungling in Iraq than Bin Laden could have dreamed of just six years ago.

Sullivan also concludes that as far as he's concerned, "the debate winnowed the field of candidates down to two: McCain and Paul." Talk about your odd couples—those two don't have much in common besides opposition to torture and to pork. But I suppose they represent in distilled form two radically different options for the country: an intrusive state at home and empire abroad, or liberty and non-intervention. Take your pick, GOP.