Ron Paul for President: It's (Very Close to) Official
Politico is reporting that Ron Paul will make an official announcement of his presidential bid for 2012 tomorrow morning in New Hampshire.
Politico is also reporting that Paul continues to be fearless about tweaking the national security jingos in his own party and out of it, casting aspersions on the official Greatest Thing That's Ever Happened to America®, the killing of Osama Bin Laden:
"I think things could have been done somewhat differently," Paul said this week. "I would suggest the way they got Khalid [Sheikh] Mohammed. We went and cooperated with Pakistan. They arrested him, actually, and turned him over to us, and he's been in prison. Why can't we work with the government?"
Asked by WHO Radio's Simon Conway whether he would have given the go-ahead to kill bin Laden if it meant entering another country, Paul shot back that it "absolutely was not necessary."
"I don't think it was necessary, no. It absolutely was not necessary," Paul said during his Tuesday comments. "I think respect for the rule of law and world law and international law. What if he'd been in a hotel in London? We wanted to keep it secret, so would we have sent the airplane, you know the helicopters into London, because they were afraid the information would get out?"
This very controversial position is in line with his general sense that the U.S. should not and need not act like a power that can do whatever it wants wherever it wants, and that other people and nations in the Middle East generally deserve to be treated with the same sympathy and empathy as any other. He's held firm to these stances, and seems like he'll continue to, though it remains to be seen how many GOP primary voters will go along with him.
My interview with Paul on the announcement of his exploratory committee a couple of weeks back. And for a blast from the past, my interview with Paul in January 2007 on the announcement of his 2008 exploratory committee.