Rep. Ron Paul, a publishing failure

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For those of you that can remember life before blogs, you may also remember that people used to publish newsletters on all topics. Forty years ago, Ron Paul launched a conservative newsletter. His newsletters were chock-filled with hateful slurs, some signed by Paul, all appearing in his publication. What was written in those newsletters was nothing short of disgusting. For example, his newsletter published a special issue of the Ron Paul Political Report on “racial terrorism” that analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992. “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began,” Paul wrote. “What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided.” When defending gay-bashing comments by the late Andy Rooney of CBS, Paul’s 1990 newsletter notes that a reporter for a gay magazine “Certainly had an axe to grind, and that’s not easy with a limp wrist. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.” In an undated solicitation letter for The Ron Paul Investment Letter, and the Ron Paul Political Report, the Congressman is generous with his bigotry. “I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or no threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in our big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS (my training as a physician helps me see through this one)… The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica.” When Rep. Paul’s newsletters were republished by the New Republic in 2008, he strongly denied authorship. The Congressman said he had never even read the newsletters, which were published under his name, by his company. Case closed, say his supporters. Here’s the problem with Paul’s denial: When the newsletters first became an issue during his congressional race in 1996, the Congressman didn’t deny them nor did he say he never read them. Back in 1996 Paul defended the articles saying they were taken out of context. But how could he know they were taken out of context if he never read them? This leads to the real question, the one that isn’t being asked. Is Ron Paul a bigot who is lying about not writing, or even reading the newsletters he defended just a few years earlier? Or was Ron Paul lying when he defended them as his writing even though he never read them? The two are mutually exclusive. If one believes Ron Paul when he says he didn’t write and never read those newsletters, then that person must also accept that he was a failure as a newsletter publisher, failing to check what was printed in his name. And when first confronted about the hatred, responding by defending the newsletters he never read, foolishly making himself look like a racist. Are those the actions of a man who is competent enough to be the Commander in Chief? On the other hand is the man who spewed such hatred the right person to be leader of the free world. One thing is certain the vast majority of Republicans and conservatives would be horrified if Ron Paul won even one primary. Polls issued earlier this week that had him winning Iowa were seriously flawed, about 30 percent of respondents did not vote in the 2008 caucuses. Iowans take their caucus very seriously and if someone avoided the caucuses last time, there is a very good chance they will avoid them this time and should not be counted as “likely caucus voters.” Ron Paul has a small, but rabid group of supporters. He will always get those supporters but to most political conservatives, his bigotry is an embarrassment to the party. Chances are when you see the results from Iowa on Jan. 3, Ron Paul will be a distant third.

 

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