P.J. O'Rourke once described the odd appeal of libertarians: "[M]eetings of the Libertarian can be pretty hilarious when you get cornered by a high school algebra teacher who wants to talk about privatizing the sidewalks for an hour. Although for all I know he might be right."
This is more or less the essence of Tucker Carlson's smart and funny TNR profile of Ron Paul, who is perhaps the only candidate running for president who couldn't possibly let down his supporters by not winning the election. For what it's worth, I've always liked Carlson, and I think Jon Stewart came off looking more like a wet dog in their celebrated scuffle on Crossfire a few years back. (Stewart has gone on, you'll notice, to make a buffoonish specialty of the hostile interview since pleading with the barking pundits to end the vitriol for the sake of American insanity.)
Here's Carlson on the road with the Ronulans (shouldn't the apposite Star Trek moniker be Paulrengis given their love of hard metal currency? Here endeth my geekdom):
[O]nly Paul has introduced a bill to legalize unpasteurized milk. Give yourself five minutes and see if you can think of a more countercultural idea than that. Most people assume that the whole reason we have a government is to make sure the milk gets pasteurized. It takes some stones to argue otherwise, especially if nobody's paying you to do it. (The raw-milk lobby basically consists of about eight goat-cheese enthusiasts in Manhattan, and possibly the Amish.) Paul is pro-choice on pasteurization entirely for reasons of principle. "I support the right of people to drink whatever they want," he says. He mocks the idea that "only government can make sure we're safe, so we need the government to protect us. I don't think we'd all die of unsafe food if we didn't have the FDA. Someone else would do it." If you know Ron Paul primarily from watching the Republican debates, you probably assume he spends most of his time ranting about September 11 and the Iraq invasion. In fact, his real passion is Austrian economics. More even than the war, Paul despises paper currency, which he considers a hoax, "fiat money." He can become emotional talking about it. Caught in traffic in downtown Vegas on the way to an event, Paul looked out the window at the casinos and mused aloud: "Can you imagine when all those slot machines used real silver dollars? All that silver … " His words trailed off, as in a pleasant daydream.
Marvel at the comments left at TNR about how Paul supporters went in thinking their man was about to be lampooned and came away gratified. It reminds me of another O'Rourkeism of yore: In a similar I-can't-help-but-sort-of-like-her-against-my-better-judgment journalistic vein, the Peej profiled Dr. Ruth, who, upon hearing a tearful confession on her television show from a housewife whose husband masturbated to Wild Kingdom, was given to remark therapeutically: "Don't worry. Maybe he's thinking of you when he does it."
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