A Round of Applause for Ron Paul and a Big Raspberry for Giuliani

Republican Presidential hopefuls Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani traded jabs over the war on terror in the recent GOP debate. If you based the outcome of this on the amount of applause; like they do in a TV show; then you might think that Giuliani was the winner. However, if you based the outcome on reality, then Paul is the winner by a landslide.

The following is the transcript of the Giuliani - Paul exchange:

MR. GOLER: "Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq, who would bring the troops home as quickly as - almost immediately, sir. Are you out of step with your party? Is your party out of step with the rest of the world? If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination?"

REP. PAUL: "Well, I think the party has lost its way, because the conservative wing of the Republican Party always advocated a noninterventionist foreign policy. Senator Robert Taft didn't even want to be in NATO. George Bush won the election in the year 2000 campaigning on a humble foreign policy - no nation-building, no policing of the world. Republicans were elected to end the Korean War. The Republicans were elected to end the Vietnam War. There's a strong tradition of being anti-war in the Republican party. It is the constitutional position. It is the advice of the Founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy, stay out of entangling alliances, be friends with countries, negotiate and talk with them and trade with them. Just think of the tremendous improvement - relationships with Vietnam. We lost 60,000 men. We came home in defeat. Now we go over there and invest in Vietnam. So there's a lot of merit to the advice of the Founders and following the Constitution. And my argument is that we shouldn't go to war so carelessly. When we do, the wars don't end."

MR. GOLER: "Congressman, you don't think that changed with the 9/11 attacks, sir?"

REP. PAUL: "What changed?"

MR. GOLER: "The non-interventionist policies."