Old Ron Paul news
Old in several respects. First, the newsletters excerpted by The New Republic date back to the 80s and 90s. Second, there’s nothing new about these excerpts as regards public knowledge of them. They were used by a political opponent when running against Paul long ago. The only thing remotely new about them is that they are becoming widely known.
What am I talking about? This TNR article by James Kirchick: Angry White Man: The Bigoted Past of Ron Paul.
The gist is this: in the 80’s and 90’s, a number of newsletters of various titles but all bearing Ron Paul’s name, appeared. Most of the articles are unsigned and, significantly, none of the articles signed by Paul appear to contain any objectionable content. The articles that do, are written in a style quite different than anything provably written by Ron Paul, which means that they were most likely written by someone other than Paul.
Paul and his campaign have repudiated the objectionable content and claim that the articles were written by others, that he had little or no knowledge of what the newsletters contained and so bears no direct responsibility (other than a moral responsibility to know what was written in newsletters to which he lent his name) for the objectionable content — a plausible argument but one that, even if true, leaves one wondering why he would allow his name to be attached to newsletters that he did not read or keep close enough tabs on to know what was being promulgated under his name. The irresponsibility of it makes one wonder if he was quite so naive as he claims. The sordid collection of white-supremecists, neo-Nazis, far-Right-wing, anti-government militia types and Trilateral Commission conspiracy types that tend to gravitate to Paul’s campaign along with other, more mainstream Libertarians and Paul’s refusal to return money donated by certain generally offensive carachters detracts from rather than adds to Paul’s credibility in this matter.
I’m happy to accept Paul’s explanation that he did not write the articles, did not know of their content and does not endorse them. That explanation, however, detracts from my opinion of his judgment. We’ve had enough presidents whose defenses against charges of bad behavior consist mainly of plausible deniability already without placing another one in office who displays this tendency. In any case, Paul was never going to be my choice in the race — I haven’t endorsed any of the candidates yet but there are several that I have decided not to support and Paul is one of them — so this dust-up plays no part in my ultimate choice for president in 2008.
Reason Magazine has a nice round-up of reactions from around the blogosphere.