Weigel

DES MOINES -- I said there were two interesting moments in Ron Paul's radio interview. The other one came as a total surprise. You see, one reason for Paul's success in Iowa is a classy, effective series of TV ads that highlight the areas where he and mainstream conservatives are sympatico. Case in point: "Life," an ad that ran in October and beyond, with a straight-to-camera horror story of the time Paul saw an aborted fetus in a hospital garbage can.

This came up on Jan Mikkelson's show as... a challenge for Paul. Mikkelson explained that he'd heard voters who thought Paul was basically an abortionist.

"How can Ron Paul call himself pro-life," said Mikkelson, paraphrasing them, "if he did not rescue that two-pound child from that bucket? He's not pro-life."

Paul was briefly taken aback. "I would have had to have... I don't know," he said. "It was probably a fleeting, two minute thing. I walked in, took a peek, saw what was happening, because I was visiting there for an operating room. But I didn't have the facilities! What could I have done?"

How else do you answer a question like this?