Andrew Sullivan On Ron Paul

Some interesting comments over at The Daily Dish:

The condescension to and mockery of the sole Republican candidate who seems to care about individual liberty has begun to tick me off. Chris Matthews can be heard groaning “Oh, God,” after Paul spoke of the “original intent” of the Founders with respect to the Constitution.

(…)

I’m glad Paul’s supporters are fighting back on the web. He deserves more respect than he has gotten thus far, not least because compared to the pandering of his competitors, Paul actually seems to believe what he says. And what he says has more to do with conservatism than the crap the rest of them are peddling.

What’s interesting is that the rest of the GOP field is basically ignoring Paul. Right now, that seems to be a reasonable strategy given that I haven’t seen him pass 3% in any scientific poll conducted to date. If something clicks, though, and he starts polling in the double digits things could get interesting.

What is more interesting about Sullivan’s quote, though, is that it points out the extent to which the ideas of the Founding Fathers have become irrelevant to most of the Republican leadership. They may use the names of Washington and Jefferson in their speeches, but they don’t really believe in any of the ideas that either of those men or their contemporaries fought for.