RON PAUL: He’s just terrible, even when — which is often, once he’s off the subject of the war — I agree with him. His voice is too high, he can’t remember who the Kurds are, and he often comes off like a crazy old man in a bus station.

But that’s good news, in a way. Paul’s doing better than anyone expected. It’s abundantly clear that he’s not doing it on charisma and rhetorical skill. Which means that libertarian ideas are actually appealing, since Ron Paul isn’t. Paul’s flaws as a vessel for those ideas prove the ideas’ appeal. If they sell with him as the pitchman, they must be really resonating. I suspect Paul himself would agree with this analysis. Er, except maybe the bus station part.

Another 100 years or so, and we ought to have a libertarian candidate win something.

HORTICULTURE JOURNALISM 101 — a gallery of CNN/YouTube plants. “Abortion questioner is declared Edwards supporter . . . Log Cabin Republican questioner is declared Obama supporter; lead toy questioner is a prominent union activist for the Edwards-endorsing United Steelworkers.”

Other than that, they were just “ordinary Americans.”

A ROUNDUP ON LAST NIGHT’S DEBATE from Stephen Green. Excerpt: “What we really saw tonight was CNN playing out its own agenda in front of a couple million viewers and seven or eight candidates, without anyone calling them on it.” Planted questions and all . . . .

ETA:  JUST HEARD A LENGTHY NPR STORY ON THE YOUTUBE DEBATE, with a live followup from Mara Liasson — and it omitted any mention of the planted question issue. Hmm. If Fox hosted a Democratic debate and many of the most pointed questions turned out to come from Republican activists, but Fox didn’t disclose that, do you think it would pass unremarked?