No Treason

Another rambling, indirect, wasteful performance today by Ron Paul.  He gets 5 minutes to question Geithner, and should have asked him about his comments to the CFR regarding the dollar, or any of the hundred other pressing issues of the day, but instead he has another ad lib ramble about innocent until proven guilty, which Geithner easily evades without saying anything meaningful.

I don’t even know why Lew Rockwell links to this stuff, because Ron has been off a lot more than he has been on lately.  Would it kill him to make a forceful prepared statement Daniel Hannan style?

The other day, Paul defended his style of questioning, I think it was on Glen Beck.  That wasn’t convincing either.  We can all get all of the Ron Paul opinion time we want on the ‘net.  He has published books, he has his Texas Straight talk, he gives speeches on the house floor, he’s on TV a couple times a week.

But when he gets a few minutes to challenge those in power, he turns into an ideologue and a wallflower and it is immensely frustrating.

Bill Anderson on the LRC blog writes,

Lew, as I watch that video, it dawns on me that Ron Paul might as well be speaking Ancient Greek to Geithner (emphasis mine). Most people in Washington have no clue as to what he means about delegation of powers, or what we have called the “Non-delegation Clause” of the U.S. Constitution.

And that is the point.  Because Ron chooses not to properly prepare and goes off on esoteric tangents, he comes off as speaking in Greek, and the clever bureaucrats play dumb and can avoid answering him.  Ron is not speaking to a friendly audience where he can deliver the same lines and stories over and over, but he’s there as an investigator and an interrogator.

I appreciate everything Ron Paul has exposed me to, and his personal sacrifices to further liberty, but it’s not hard to see how a guy can be punchless in the Congress for so long, when he just can’t ask a few direct questions, and insists upon going on and on about abstract moral and ethical issues that don’t even relate to the hearings.

What a wasted opportunity.  And opportunities are so few they can’t be squandered so carelessly.

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