Exclusive: Ron Paul Responds To New Republic Story
David Weigel | January 8, 2008, 3:46pm
About an hour ago I followed Ron Paul outside the Radisson in Manchester, NH to get his response to James Kirchick's explosive New Republic piece, "Angry White Man." The article goes through the Texas Republican's newsletters from the 1970s through the 1990s, and finds dozens of offensive comments about gays, blacks, and other targets.
I was told by Paul's staff it was old news and he didn't want to talk about it, but I asked the candidate a few questions as he moved to his car.
Here's a transcript:
reason: Do you have any response to The New Republic's article about your newsletters?
Ron Paul: All it is--it's old stuff. It's all been rehashed. It's all political stuff.
reason: Why don't you release all the old letters?
Paul: I don't even have copies of them, because it's ancient history.
reason: Do you stand by what appears in the letters? Did you write these...?
Paul: No. I've discussed all of that in the past. It's just old news.
reason: Did the New Republic talk to you before they ran it?
Paul: No, I never talked to them.
reason: What do you think of Martin Luther King?
Paul: Martin Luther King is one of my heroes because he believed in nonviolence and that's a libertarian principle. Rosa Parks is the same way. Gandhi, I admire. Because they're willing to take on the government, they were willing to take on bad laws. So I believe in civil disobedience if you understand the consequences. Martin Luther King was a great person because he did that and he changed America for the better because of that.
reason: You didn't write the derogatory things about him in the letter?
Paul: No.
Paul's position is basically that he wrote the newsletters he stands by and someone else wrote the stuff he has disowned.
Matt Welch blogged an MSNBC appearance by Kirchick yesterday.
reason on Ron Paul here.
4truth1 | January 8, 2008, 4:10pm | #
You are being lied and manipulated by the media. They want war. They are agents of death and are lying about Ron Paul, because he threatens them.
RON PAUL'S OWN WORDS:
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 58. I saw Muhammad Ali as a man of great courage, and I admired him for this, not because of the courage that it took to get in a ring and fight men bigger than he, but because of his stance in 1967.
In 1967, he was 25 years old. He was the heavyweight champion of the world, and for religious beliefs, he practiced what Martin Luther King made popular, civil disobedience, because he disagreed with the war. I thought his comments were rather astute at the time and were not complex, but he merely said, I have no quarrel with the Viet-Cong. He said the Viet-Cong never called him a name, and because of his religious convictions, he said he did not want to serve in the military. He stood firm, a man of principle, and I really admired this as a quality.
He is known, of course, for his athletic skills and his humanitarian concerns, and these are rightly mentioned in a resolution like this. But I do want to emphasize this because, to me, it was so important and had such impact, in reality, what Muhammad Ali did eventually led to getting rid of the draft, and yet we as a people and we as a Congress still do not have the conviction that Muhammad Ali had, because we still have the selective service; we say, let us not draft now, but when the conditions are right, we will bring back the draft and bring back those same problems that we had in the 1960s.
I see what Muhammad Ali did as being very great. He deserves this recognition, but we should also praise him for being a man of principle and willing to give up his title for 3 years at the age of 25 at the prime of his career. How many of us give up something to stand on principle? He was a man of principle. He believed it and he stood firm, so even those who may disagree with his position may say at least he stood up for what he believed in. He suffereconsequences and fortunately was eventually vindicated.
Michael Cathcart | January 8, 2008, 4:13pm | #
The campaign should have responded within minutes of Kircheks remarks on Tucker yesterday. I realize this is all old news and has been dealt with in the past, but that wont satisfy some. It is a political smear tactic on Kirchek's part, he needs his guy Giuliani, to beat Ron Paul today. That is the reason for drudging this back up. The New Republic is a disgisting leftwing/pro-war rag, which once referred to Ross Perot as a Hitler lover.
The new York Times attempting this kind of smear, and they were forced to retract their statements.
Kirchek admitted on Tucker that he has never seen or heard ron paul use anykind of racist statements in any kind of public speech or talk. Instead he insinuated that Paul uses codewords, never mentioned what those codewords were, but I have a feeling that the primary code word he is reffering to is "states rights." That left wing rag, hates states rights.
If anyone buys into this crap, especially being released the day of an important primary, and taking into account the background of the magazine (i.e. Stephen Glass, Pro-war agend) and taking into account the political leanings of Kirchek (a huge Giulini supporter, major neo-con, pro-war) and lastly take this email response into account from Kirchek: you can see it yourself at:
http://gays-for-ron.blogspot.com/2008/01/jamie-kirchick-i-dont-think-ron-paul-is.html
Hi Berin,
Thanks for writing; and I’m glad you enjoyed by [sic] piece in the Boston Globe. I’ll try and make the [DC Log Cabin Republicans] party tonight, though [LCR President] Patrick Sammon isn’t particularly happy with me after I wrote this piece [attacking LCR for not endorsing Giuliani, whom Kirchick calls "the most pro-gay Republican White House contender in history"]
http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid50709.asp
Anyways, I don’t think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I’m just cynical and enjoy getting supporters of political candidates riled up. If you were a Giuliani guy I’d have called him a fascist. But I must say, the Ron Paul supporters are the most enthusiastic of the bunch! [Emphasis added.]
Best,
Jamie
DenisL | January 8, 2008, 4:17pm | #
This is a repost from someone else with more detail on the smear.
Quote:" These were written by an outside writer and it was discussed many years ago in a Texas Monthly interview with Ron Paul.
Excerpt from the Texas Monthly interview
“What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U. S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this.
When I ask him why, he pauses for a moment, then says, “I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren’t really written by me. It wasn’t my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around. I think the one on Barbara Jordan was the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady.” Paul says that item ended up there because “we wanted to do something on affirmative action, and it ended up in the newsletter and became personalized. I never personalize anything.”
His reasons for keeping this a secret are harder to understand: “They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn’t come from me directly, but they campaign aides said that’s too confusing. ‘It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.’” It is a measure of his stubbornness, determination, and ultimately his contrarian nature that, until this surprising volte-face in our interview, he had never shared this secret. It seems, in retrospect, that it would have been far, far easier to have told the truth at the time.”
Since I believe in Ron Paul from watching him for 30 years, it is clear to me that he is protecting someone that is close to him. It must have been someone very close for him not to release the name. I can only surmise that he is protecting someone that he does not want to hurt. You and I can only speculate on why that might be. I can come up with several good reasons for him to do this. In any case he has repudiated the columns and outside of the weird non-Ron Paul writing style, there is nothing else of substance to this rehashed smear campaign from the neocons.
Li | January 8, 2008, 4:20pm | #
No way I'm jumping on the "Ron Paul is a racist" bandwagon just because of this pieces, written by a very questionable person with questionable motives published by a web site I have trouble with.
I've seen about as many of Paul's speeches and writings as one can reasonably absorb over the past few months, and never have I seen any of the venom displayed in that article. I've already heard the allegations, and how they were handled during his Congressional race.
Based on his voting record, and his speeches, Paul doesn't support any kind of black agenda, or white agenda, or latino agenda, and as a minority (latino) I'm completely fine with that. We each need to be judged for our own merits, whether applying for a job, getting graded on collage papers, or whatever. Some of the things in that article were completely fine, some appear like there are plenty of reasonable contexts, and some clearly are horrible.
Paul already talked about the embarrassment of having staffer(s) who used his name to publish things he greatly disagrees with. Of course his political enemies were going to raise these issues again in a Presidential race, but it was done in a very questionable manner.
For now, Paul continues to have my complete support, based on the platform he is running on, his message, and his history. He has sufficiently responded to these allegations in the past, and based on all I know about him and heard from him, I completely believe him.
4truth1 | January 8, 2008, 4:26pm | #
You are being lied and manipulated by the media. They want war. They are agents of death and are lying about Ron Paul, because he threatens them.
Do you want to die in war? Do you want you family to die in war? DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIES OF THE WARMONGERS.
RON PAUL'S OWN WORDS:
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 58. I saw Muhammad Ali as a man of great courage, and I admired him for this, not because of the courage that it took to get in a ring and fight men bigger than he, but because of his stance in 1967.
In 1967, he was 25 years old. He was the heavyweight champion of the world, and for religious beliefs, he practiced what Martin Luther King made popular, civil disobedience, because he disagreed with the war. I thought his comments were rather astute at the time and were not complex, but he merely said, I have no quarrel with the Viet-Cong. He said the Viet-Cong never called him a name, and because of his religious convictions, he said he did not want to serve in the military. He stood firm, a man of principle, and I really admired this as a quality.
He is known, of course, for his athletic skills and his humanitarian concerns, and these are rightly mentioned in a resolution like this. But I do want to emphasize this because, to me, it was so important and had such impact, in reality, what Muhammad Ali did eventually led to getting rid of the draft, and yet we as a people and we as a Congress still do not have the conviction that Muhammad Ali had, because we still have the selective service; we say, let us not draft now, but when the conditions are right, we will bring back the draft and bring back those same problems that we had in the 1960s.
I see what Muhammad Ali did as being very great. He deserves this recognition, but we should also praise him for being a man of principle and willing to give up his title for 3 years at the age of 25 at the prime of his career. How many of us give up something to stand on principle? He was a man of principle. He believed it and he stood firm, so even those who may disagree with his position may say at least he stood up for what he believed in. He suffereconsequences and fortunately was eventually vindicated.
Guy Montag | January 8, 2008, 4:28pm | #
Allen Lottinger,
TNR is NOT owned by Murdoch, unless you know of some sort of secret-conspiracy-shell-game that is going on and have some proof of it.
That magazine is bizarre. They supported the GWOT for a while and many of their Leftie friends attacked them relentlessly, even though their position was that the wrong party was running the war.
Then they ran the "Baghdad Diarist" series, that they had nobody in-house with a military background to make a guess if they were true. As soon as
those were proven false, they got a boost from the military-hating Lefties, but it is not clear if
TNR intended to bash the military or not. They just did not seemed to go along with whatever was sent to them and treated it like a movie review.
A couple of days ago, TNR published a glowing article of well mannered, smart, nice, Ron Paul supporters in NH. No telling if that one was factual, of course, but now they publish this re-hash of stuff long since debunked.
Is Can-West going to be publishing
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as some new revelation in the evolution of the Jews before Valentine's day?
They seem like the political version of
2600, without the consistancy.
BlackAmerican4Paul | January 8, 2008, 4:51pm | #
Well, as a black American, I admit that I found this a little bit disturbing at first.
However, the timing of this piece is highly suspect. And given the recent exclusion of Ron Paul (the GOP candidate with the most fund-raising totals from the Fox debate, for which no legitimate reason was provided) it has become pretty blatantly obvious to me that Ron Paul is absolutely terrifying the people who control this country, and the Establishment.
I also have to consider the source and examine the motives of the New Republic journalist.
This gives me pause for concern: http://gays-for-ron.blogspot.com/2008/01/jamie-kirchick-i-dont-think-ron-paul-is.html
-------
I emailed Jamie the next day to engage him further and to ask just what he found so offensive. His response:
Hi Berin,
Thanks for writing; and I’m glad you enjoyed by [sic] piece in the Boston Globe. I’ll try and make the [DC Log Cabin Republicans] party tonight, though [LCR President] Patrick Sammon isn’t particularly happy with me after I wrote this piece [attacking LCR for not endorsing Giuliani, whom Kirchick calls "the most pro-gay Republican White House contender in history"]
http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid50709.asp
Anyways, I don’t think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I’m just cynical and enjoy getting supporters of political candidates riled up. If you were a Giuliani guy I’d have called him a fascist. But I must say, the Ron Paul supporters are the most enthusiastic of the bunch! [Emphasis added.]
Best,
Jamie
-------
Hmmm. It's pretty obvious from this that the journalist (Kirchik) is a Rudy supporter, or at least admires Rudy. He himself admits that he doesn't think Ron Paul is a homophobe, so why did he go through with this article? He says himself that he simply loves to get people riled up by hurling barbs at their favorite political candidate, so why should I take this person seriously.
I don't like it when the media tries to use race as a wedge against people who want to radically change the status quo. I'm 26 years old, but from what I've read in my studies, this is very similar to what the media did to Barry Goldwater (saying he was a racist), when in reality Barry Goldwater was a member of the NAACP. I see this happening again, and I don't like it. It makes me wonder if the media's accusations of a person's alleged racism increase in proportion to their opposition to the Federal Reserve. Makes you wonder.
Also, I have a hard time believing that Ron Paul is racist when he has stated publicly that he would consider Walter Williams as his running mate:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2007/05/do_tell_ron_paul_on_babies_pro.html
"Sleuth: If you were to defy the polls and the odds and win the nomination, who would be your running mate?
Paul: Well, I don't know, but if I won, you know, I'd want a recount. You know, lets be certain about what's going on here.
But a running mate. Somebody like Walter Williams. Walter Williams is a very good economist. John Stossel, John Stossel would be good."
Walter Williams is a well-known black American economist. I have to wonder: how many other GOP candidates have mentioned a black American as a possible VP pick? My guess is none of them.
The media is in a tough spot here. Because FOX was so blatant about it, a lot of people are aware that the media has an obvious agenda to keep Ron Paul's message out of the debates and off the air. People are not stupid and can see this. This story has been literally been around for months before this, so the fact that TNR's article happens to coincide with the NH primary is further proof that Ron Paul has someone scrambling. Something stinks here, and I'm not buying it.
R Allen | January 8, 2008, 4:56pm | #
Of course he's anti-gay, he wants to end the drug war and quit subsidizing state sponsered, just look the other way, rape in the prison system, we can spin that as anti-gay right? (maybe there's a racist spin angle in there we can work up too?)
Let's! Let's be in the cool clique and bash him about it, it's the new hip thing, it's easy and gets you hits on your site, and will undoubtedly help your bright future! Of course, might torpedo it too, if [when] people decide they can make up thier own minds instead, and/or learn they've been mislead...
Roll the dice yo, I'm still behind what is obviously a Great Man as it's my bet most all people will see this in him one day, one way or another; for me it's just a question of if it'll be soon enough to significantly help our lives or because it's too late. I'm also taking notes on who's pulling for what, [indivduals, sites, papers, stations, networks, channels, et al] and will remember you 'cool clique' so-called journalists and your actions and slants forever, if you were a friend of mine I'd candily advise you to hop on or under.
Additionally, to friends, this is likely just the beginning of a dedicated 'whatever is nessecery' campain, I'd like to remind readers that all those who claim to be or have been RP supporters really are/were, and that those of us who indeed are need to have thick skin and dedication.
Dave | January 8, 2008, 6:58pm | #
You know what folks:
Issues, Issues, Issues. What should we be discussing? Let's take a breath of reality for a second.
The United States is over 9 trillion dollars in debt, climbing at a rate of almost 2 billion dollars per day in interest alone. We have a trillion dollar trade deficit and a 1 trillion dollar budget with a trillion dollar budget deficit. The actual adjusted budget is closer to 4 trillion dollars which is obscene.
Millions of Americans are losing their homes. Unemployment is climbing and real unemployment (the U-6 report) is approaching 13%. Millions of jobs have been exported and cheap labor is being imported. We've lost 50% of our manufacturing/industrial base with more companies moving outside the US each week.
Our fiat currency is falling fast and is predicted to hit as low as .60 this year. That is causing the price of oil to skyrocket so gas prices by the end of this year could hit $5.00 per gallon. Food prices are rising so fast, some goods are priced 100% higher than a year ago. But wages aren't keeping pace with accumulated inflation, so we are going broke and over-extending ourselves with back-breaking credit - just like our government.
We're fighting a 1.4 trillion dollar war in Iraq and a .75 trillion dollar war in Afghanistan. People are dying and we're paying in both lives and treasure. Pakistan and Iran may be next. Meanwhile, in the supposed war on terror where we fear men living in caves half-way around the world, our civil liberties and bill of rights are being destroyed.
Should I go on? If we don't get a POTUS in office that obeys the constitution NOW, we'll all be broke and our great nation will become a third world country. We cannot continue to pay for the huge empire we've built with over 700 bases in foreign nations.
We cannot afford to keep fighting pre-emptive wars and providing other nations with financial aid when our own people are hurting. Millions of our own children go hungry every night. Is that right?
Yet, with any of the candidates running except Paul (and Kucinich), you'll get more of the same, so is there any need for discussion?
I have been a fan of Paul since the 1980s. He is no racist and he is no bigot.
So what? Do we now drop our support for him and elect another CFR-controlled, bought-and-paid-for POTUS who will ruin our country beyond compare, all because of a mistake he made 15 years ago?
If we allow this to destroy our resolve to effect change, we will only have ourselves to blame.
Tom Explains It | January 8, 2008, 8:01pm | #
January 08, 2008
"Pimply- Faced Youth" Slanders Ron Paul on Tucker Carlson Show
Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo at January 8, 2008 01:11 PM
An emailer informed me this morning that a young kid whom he called a "grossly uneducated, pimply-faced youth" slandered both Ron Paul and myself on the Tucker Carlson show last night. The pimply-faced youth (PFY) is one Jamie Kirchick, who writes for the left-wing, pro-war New Republic magazine. In the YouTube video of the conversation the PFY asserts over and over that Ron Paul is a "racist." When Carlson asks him if he ever heard Ron make a racist remark he says "No." But then, with a Gotcha! look on his face, the PFY announces: "BUT," he DID attend a conference on secession in 1995!! Aha! Gotcha!
This ignorant little kid posing as a "journalist" then informed everyone that the conference was sponsored by a "neo-Confederate" group and that Ron Paul speaks to "the neo-Confederate community," whatever that is, "in code language. (I knew that Ron was in touch with the Martian community, and with the residents of the planet Remulak, home of the supposedly "fictional" Coneheads of Saturday Night Live fame, but not the "Neo-Confederate Community" as well).
Well, I was at that secession conference and presented a paper there. It was sponsored by the Mises Institute, which has nothing to do with Confederates, neo or otherwise, as anyone who surveyed the Institute's programs on its web site (www.mises.org) would know. The PFY did not bother because he is only interested in slandering Ron Paul, not in being a serious journalist.
My paper was about the Northern secessionist tradition prior to the War between the States, including the Hartford, Ct. secession convention of 1814, and the secession movements of the mid-Atlantic states that existed prior to the war (see the book, The Secession Movement in the Middle States by William Wright). The famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was a Northern secessionist whose credo was "No Covenant with Death," the "covenant" being the U.S. Constitition, and "death" being slavery. Other papers had to do with the Quebec secession movement, European secession movements, federalism in general, how the U.S. was created by a war of secession from the British empire, and even "How to Secede in Business" by substituting arbitration for litigation.
But don't take my word for it. The proceedings of the conference, which the PFY is obviously ignorant of, were published as a book: Secession, State and Liberty, edited by Dr. David Gordon, whose Ph.D. from UCLA is in the field of intellectual history. It includes essays by scholars and professors from Emory University, Florida State University, UNLV, University of Montreal, University of South Carolina, and even a lawyer from Buffalo, New York. It was published a few years after the Soviet empire imploded as the result of eleven separate acts of peaceful secession, which made it especially relevant to social scientists.
In fact, secession remains a lively topic of academic discourse, something that the PFY is obviously unfamiliar with. A few weeks ago a secession conference sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities was held in Chrleston, South Carolina, featuring some thirty historians and legal scholars. In little Jamie Kirchick's empty mind, the NEH must necessarily be a hotbed of pro-slavery sentiment. (A friend in academe tells me that the participants in this conference spanned the ideological spectrum from left/liberal to Marxist).
Only an ignorant conspiracy theorist like Jamie Kirchick would assume that anyone who studies secession in a scholarly way is necessarily some kind of KKK-sympathizing kook. He knows that Ron Paul will not sue him for defamation because he is a public figure. I, however, am not a public figure.
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