Ron Paul: Mainstream Democrat

Jeff Jacoby nails it.

Paul helps illustrate what may be the most significant difference between the two major parties today: Republicans who don't take the threat of radical Islam seriously are marginalized. Democrats who don't do so constitute their party's mainstream.

At the Democratic debate on April 26, moderator Brian Williams asked the eight candidates: "Show-of-hands question: Do you believe there is such a thing as a global war on terror?" Only four -- Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Christopher Dodd, and a noticeably hesitant Barack Obama -- raised their hands. Kucinich, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Mike Gravel did not. Unlike Ron Paul, who holds no important position in the GOP, Biden is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Edwards was his party's vice presidential nominee in 2004. The man who headed the ticket that year, Senator John Kerry, insisted that Islamist terror is merely "a nuisance" that "we're never going to end," like gambling and prostitution.

What explains the Democrats' unwillingness to acknowledge the gravity of the global jihad? In part, it may stem from the sense that Islamists and the left share common foes. George Galloway, the radical antiwar British parliamentarian, declared in 2005 that "the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies. . . the Muslims and the progressives are on the same side."

Read the whole thing.