Ron Paul OK on Daily Show

Just saw Ron Paul on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show," and he did all right. Everybody presumes Stewart's proclivities are leftist, but I haven't watched him enough to form an opinion. I'm pleased that he's irreverent about most politicians. But while he poked a little fun here and there, he was mostly not all that irreverent about Ron Paul. Maybe the idea of an elected official (I'm not sure you can call Ron Paul a politician, though he's managed top get elected to 10 terms in Congress) actually having firm principles and sticking to them consistently has a certain attraction.

Actually, I think the founding fathers hoped Congress would always be full of Ron Pauls, perhaps of different persuasions but caring more about principle than special interests and getting reelected, but it hasn't worked out that way, has it?

Stewart tweaked him a little about Medicare, but not enough to point out that when Ron said that as a physician he never took Medicare, that he was an ob-gyn, and not many of his patients were likely to be on Medicare. Ron handled the question fairly well, pointing out that while he would rather not have the government providing medical care, it was hardly his top priority, and we have trained a generation or more of Americans to be dependent on government and it would take a fairly lengthy transition period to change those habits of mind.

People say that many young people get their political news and political attitudes more from the Daily Show than from the traditional news media. Don't know if that's really true. If so, Ron may have done himself some good. He was good-humored and didn't take himself too seriously while making it clear that he takes his principles quite seriously.