In the service of his loathsome ideology, Representative Ron Paul is willing to distort things quite a bit.

According to the Des Moines Register:

At a campaign stop on Saturday in Winterset, one man asked Paul how terrorist groups would react if the U.S. removed its military presence in Middle Eastern nations, a move the candidate advocates.

“Which enemy are you worried that will attack our national security?” Paul asked.

“If you’re looking for specifics, I’m talking about Islam. Radical Islam,” the man answered.

“I don’t see Islam as our enemy,” Paul said. “I see that motivation is occupation and those who hate us and would like to kill us, they are motivated by our invasion of their land, the support of their dictators that they hate.”

There’s one small problem with Paul’s Unified Theory of American Hatred: it’s nonsense. The September 11 attacks on the United  States came before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There was no “occupation” to ground jihadist hate in. We did have a presence in Saudi Arabia, but that hardly qualified as an “occupation.”

Paul seems intent on blaming America for the burning hatred directed against us, to the point that he has to disfigure history to justify it. It’s a peculiar citizen of this nation who would do such a thing. I suppose I understand why most Republicans (with the fine exception of Rick Santorum) have not taken on the noxious ideology of Representative Paul. But the dirty little secret is Ron Paul holds views that are disgraceful. It seems to me that conservatives, in the name of reaching out to those who inhabit the loony fringes of the libertarian movement, shouldn’t pretend otherwise.