New Republic Writer: Ron Paul Called MLK a "Gay Pedophile"
On Tucker Carlson's show 45 minutes ago, The New Republic's Jamie Kirchick alleged that Ron Paul called Martin Luther King a "gay pedophile," and stuffed 20 years' worth of "Ron Paul" newsletters full of "racist, anti-semitic, homophobic invective."
Kirchick, whose story for TNR (along with screen-shots of the newsletters themselves) are scheduled to go up at midnight EDT "tomorrow afternoon," said that Paul "called black people animals," and spoke at a "pro-secessionist conference." In teeing up the segment, Carlson, who was skeptical about some of Kirchick's claims, reported that the Paul campaign has apologized for the content of the newsletters to both Kirchick and Carlson.
More to come from here after the gong strikes midnight.
reason on Paul here. Dave Weigel talked about Paul's newsletter racism back in July. Nick Gillespie and I tried to make sense of the rEVOLution for the Washington Post late last year. Brian Doherty covered the Paul campaign from the beginning, asked if Paul was good for libertarians in July, and wrote our current cover story.
UPDATE: Video here.
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It's pile-on time.
Paul, Obama, Huckabee...all outsiders in the establishment sense, and all doing "better than they oughta", terrifying many. Can't wait for the real dirt to start flying; all my newfound hope and faith for humanity in general and my fellow Americans in particular was never going to last, anyways.
They keep digging and finding the same old, worn out stories, always ready to fling, just in case this time it sticks. Soon we should be back around to Ron Paul's a KKK member because he didn't give back the $500 donation from Black. After that, we should expect another round of how he's a hyporcite for putting earmarks in the bills he vetos and so on and so forth.
The only problem about flinging mud at Paul is that when you reach down to grab the juicy, gotcha dirtball story, the best you can find is a dust bunny under a borrowed couch.
Can't wait for the real dirt to start flying; all my newfound hope and faith for humanity in general and my fellow Americans in particular was never going to last, anyways.
Ah, Jeez. I agree Elempope. Sobriety was okay while it lasted, but I'm going back to the bottle, and I'll likely pick up a few other habits depending on November.
Midnight EDT? So it will go up at 11 p.m.?
Wake me up when Dr. Paul is caught:
1) in a bathroom stall taking a wide stance,
2) with a dead girl,
3) or in bed with a live boy.
That is all.
God dammit I knew this guy was a racist, I just had this feeling about him. I don't know how I could have bought into all of his disgusting verbal rhetoric that praises MLK. I am sickened.
wow, the media is scarry. I'm starting to see visions of Hitler in them, not Paul.
The fact that the Paul campaign has yet to respond to this, makes me worried that this will be a big story tomorrow. Tucker Carlson did a horrible job refuting the claims of this neocon publication, and didn't have anyone from the campaign to refute the claims.
THE CAMPAIGN MUST RESPOND NOW!!!
Does anybody except me care whether or not this is true?
She who hath mud to fling, sinless or not... let 'er first cast!
Be not the first the mud to fling, nor the last to cast some!
Cast mud! There is no shortage of it! God will make more.
When a the smear hit a your ear like a bigga pizza pie, that's more a fun!
Ain't politics grand!
Ruthless
I went to Yale with Jamie Kirchick. To think he's had the nerve to call himself a "libertarian" before. He's one of those delightful people who automatically equates all criticism of Israel with antisemitism. I think all of this crap comes out of his cognitive dissonance from being a homosexual supporter of the oppressive, anti-gay, Republican Party. Heaven help him if I run into him at a reunion or the Harvard-Yale game...
I care. I like Paul and would consider voting because he's running.
If he's proven a racist, then I wouldn't vote for him, nor root for his campaign. He'd be an embarassment. If he's written outright racists rants, he will have done a huge disservice to the cause...
hey Joe, we supporters already know the background on this story, and it is not true. These are based on something a ghostwriter wrote, not Paul himself. This same old thing has come up over and over again, and every time these people are proven wrong. However, although he didn't write it, like a real man, he has taken responsibility for it because it was his newsletter
PROVE IT! Until then, I believe nothing because people HAVE to make stuff up just to make him look bad. Wah, ok, wah, go cry about it, then show me some proof!
Has Parade confirmed the story? That's what I want to know.
Blah blah blah.
This garbage was refuted LONG ago.
gay pedophile? Did some 14 year old write that?
I would like Paul to explain it again since I'm sure there are people that have seen this for the first time. Never heard the statement "MLK was a gay pedophile". I think that might be an out and out lie of ever what the ghost written paper said.
tina,
I've been following Paul pretty closely, and this is new to me.
This particular charge is quite something else than the maybe-ghostwritten "newsletters" that he allowed to be published under his name.
Guess they take issue to stuff like this:
http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc289/LSUfanFR/?action=view¤t=Helms.jpg
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1923902/posts
This excerpt from Wikipedia demonstrates how the same thing happened in to Ron Paul in 1996.
"Paul's Democratic opponent in the fall election, trial lawyer Charles "Lefty" Morris, lost in a close margin, despite assistance from the AFL-CIO. Paul's large contributor base outraised Morris two-to-one, giving the third-highest amount of individual contributions received by any House member (behind Gingrich and Bob Dornan).[53] It became the third time Paul had been elected to Congress as a non-incumbent.[10]
Morris ran numerous attacks, including publicizing issues of the Ron Paul Survival Report (published by Paul since 1985) that included derogatory comments concerning race and other politicians.[54][55] Alluding to a 1992 study finding that "of black men in Washington ... about 85 percent are arrested at some point in their lives",[56][57] the newsletter proposed assuming that "95% of the black males in Washington DC are semi-criminal or entirely criminal", and stated that "the criminals who terrorize our cities ... largely are" young black males, who commit crimes "all out of proportion to their numbers".[58][59]
In 2001, Paul took "moral responsibility" for the comments printed in his newsletter under his name, telling Texas Monthly magazine that the comments were written by an unnamed ghostwriter and did not represent his views. He said newsletter remarks referring to U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan (calling her a "fraud" and a "half-educated victimologist") were "the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady."[60] The magazine defended Paul's decision to protect the writer's confidence in 1996, concluding, "In four terms as a U.S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this."[35] In 2007, with the quotes resurfacing, New York Times Magazine writer Christopher Caldwell concurred that Paul denied the allegations "quite believably, since the style diverges widely from his own,"[10] but added that Paul's "response to the accusations was not transparent."[10]"
I'm probably going to get pilloried for this, but setting Slavery aside, is there anything wrong with the concept, or "right" to secede per se. I mean, if the secession issue wasn't sullied with racism by the fact that the last most successful secession was over slavery, among other things, it would seem to me the perfect cause celebre for liberals to take up ... rebelling against the powers that be and starting a new society. No, it seems to me the same onus of the sort when Ronald Reagan talked about states' rights in the south and got shit for it.
Did anyone think it might be good for a government representative to treat these guys with respect now and then, lest we find ourselves with roaming militias?
Just had a funny thought, maybe the reason they're taking so long to respond is they're trying to find out where in the hell Kichick picked it up from and he's not responding to calls from the campaign. That's alot of newsletters to read.
he also said that jews were hooknosed userers who drink the blood of christian babies. and that the irish were retarded drunken potato heads.
doesn't anyone besides me care whether or not this is true?
Does anyone really accept anything that is said by these neocon hacks as being the truth? They always take a thin layer of truth and cover it with a huge helping of pure BS on their crap sandwich they serve up.
I think people are waking up to this fact. I just hope enough people can wake up fast enough to keep these crazy neocons from leading us all into destruction in their vain attempt to take over the world's oil reserves.
Hey Joe,
I'm glad to hear you have been following him, but perhaps you have not been as involved as I and my friends have? I don't know and do not want to make any guesses as to your level of involvement. Many of us, myself included, are pretty hard-core and have learned every single thing we could about his life. My group on myspace heard about this months ago, and several times since then. It has been proven incorrect. Not to mention the fact that if this were true, the chance of it not being discovered previously is pretty low considering he's done 10 terms in congress. Somebody would have drug this out a long time ago, and he wouldn't be a congressman at this point.
Those newsletter articles are the only thing Dondero has ever written that anyone cares about, and he doesn't even get credit for them.
Joe, yes, if there are substantial racial rants that can be attributed to Ron Paul it would definitely make a difference.
However, at this point it seems so Bloom County,Bill the Cat caught in tryst with Jeane Kilpatrick, seems like a parody of the political process. If it is not true, then the New Republic has to be the most pathetic news organization since the 1930's New York Times. If it is true, well say sayonara to our hopes and dreams (not just the presidency race but it would also be a threat to the image of libertarians in general).
Man. They're shaking in their boots about Ron Paul. What do they know that we don't?
Certainly he's no racist. Why are they smearing him so hard?
Ah, the ghostwritten newsletter comes up again. It must be that time of the month. They are going to try and dust off this old chestnut, eh? Sigh.... I've lost track of how many times this has been debunked... They are just trying to make something stick.
This is actually mentioned in this anti-paul youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU
Yeah, I agree the media is becoming frightening. They are ruining our ability to think for ourselves.
All these racist smears are just nonsense and disinformation. They were raised and addressed months ago. These statements were written by a staffer who was fired.
Ron Paul supports the US Constitution as the supreme law of the land. If you cannot agree with this, then you don't belong in America.
Oh man I am going to have such a field day with this H&R!!!!
"I'm probably going to get pilloried for this, but setting Slavery aside, is there anything wrong with the concept, or "right" to secede per se."
In a President? ...probably, yes.
This is how it gets done at Fox News
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC-qLjmohe4
Those newsletter articles are the only thing Dondero has ever written that anyone cares about, and he doesn't even get credit for them.
I don't like Dondero anymore than anybody else here, but he wasn't working for Paul in the 70's. he joined in '87.
They aren't, this is just the way the game is played for the big boys.
hier is how EDWEIRDOOO is celebrating this news.
[keed keed: apparently, it's Mr. Steven Crane]
Call for a retraction of these false allegations
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Media media media lol, suckers. Ron Paul rocks... He 's got my vote regardless of whatever crap media brings up. Keep trying fox/abc news.
Kirchick...said that Paul "called black people animals,"
Huh, I thought Paul didn't believe in evolution.
Just when their credibility was recovering from the Stephen Glass scandal...
This is supposed to scare away independents for tomorrow's primary. Refuting this many claims can't be done in 12 hours. January surprise, I guess.
ASSHOLES!
Could the timing on this be any more transparent? The sad thing is that I think this time it may work.
"I'm probably going to get pilloried for this, but setting Slavery aside, is there anything wrong with the concept, or "right" to secede per se."
A pro-secession president would be the sweetest thing ever. You anti-secession posters, what kind of libertarians are you?
alan,
There were some pretty deplorable things said about Martin Luther King back in the day. Genuinely disgusting, usually sexually-themed smears that would make your stomach turn.
It is because I've seen quotes and footage of people making "gay pedophile"-level smears about King that I'm not immediately dismissing this.
I have no doubt that Thomas Jefferson would have favored allowing states to secede.
ones who are able to separate theory from practical reality.
I've written a lot of nice things about Ron Paul, and how his campaign could exceed expectations and influence American politics.
But if you think anyone at the New Republic is actually scared of Ron Paul winning the New Hampshire primary or the nomination, you've bobbed to the bottom of the kool-aid bowl.
This is the second time The New Republic has done this. They are getting desperate. He called Tom DiLorenzo a secessionist. DiLorenzo wrote a book very critical of Abe Lincoln.
I have no idea what "speaking at a pro-secessionist conference" means.
If I gave a speech at a reason conference, I'd be speaking at a conference for abortionists and drug-users.
I just wish I knew why Ron Paul gets this grief when he's nothing more than a "gadfly". If this sticks better than the last time, he will be asked nothing else until Super Tuesday.
Yeah, the New Republic is so desperate and so out to get Ron Paul that they...um...wrote a sympathetic profile about how he's campaigning in Nevada which was linked to in Hit & Run last week.
Jamie Kirchick is a perfect candidate for treason. What a looser. Ony in a FREE country can someone get away with propaganda and lbogus info.. The sad truth is that it's very easy too BUY a fool like that. And who knows how much jaime is paid. Its don;t take much to bribe a fool
I'm not so sure if it's the New Republic so much as it's Kirchick. He's an ass through and through. If you do a google search, I'm sure you'll find an article of his where he explains that neocon is actually a code word for jew, and thats why liberals love using the term so much.
Anyway, if those newsletters appeared above the byline "Hillary Clinton," there is not a chance in hell anyone would let them slide, no matter how many times she said they were "ghostwritten."
I don't like Dondero anymore than anybody else here, but he wasn't working for Paul in the 70's. he joined in '87.
Sorry, I thought we were talking about the articles from the 90's that Dondero wrote. That's almost the level of lazy, sloppy commentary that gets job offers from Fox.
Echoing the comments above, Ron Paul has run for president in the past and has served 10 terms in congress. If there were any demonstrably true facts that showed him to be racist, they would have emerged a long time ago.
Who are all these dorks calling TNR a "neocon" publication?
from wiki:
Politically, the magazine supports modern liberal public policies.
They are quite well known for publishing "fabrications".
Let us not forget that this slandering comes from a staunch Giuliani supporter. If anyone can fudge the facts on someone, while trying to cloak his own misgivings (his father and uncle were in the mob for goodness sakes!) it is Giuliani.
Jeff,
Yeah whoever started that "neocon=jew" talking point is a lying ass. Of course I prefer the term "Straussian". I figure we might as well get straight to the point and show the roots of their worldview.
Video is available here.
I haven't read this discussion yet but I'm already laughing based off the headlines
Is that why Ron Paul called Rosa Parks a hero and was the only one in all of Congress to uphold the Constitution for her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs-0AXWV8so
Anyway, if those newsletters appeared above the byline "Hillary Clinton," there is not a chance in hell anyone would let them slide, no matter how many times she said they were "ghostwritten."
joe
She got away with saying "Barack Obama hasn't done the Spade Work to be President" on TV this morning.
This is a good article to read as a follow-up to this one...Kirchick is a strong Giuliani
supporter.
Ron Paul, Giuliani and Double Standards
by Andrew Sullivan
The Ron-Paul-Is-A-Closet-Nazi meme continues. It seems to me that there are a lot of reasons to oppose Ron Paul. Jamie Kirchick's vision of US foreign policy is one of them. But to say that a single $500 contribution from a neo-Nazi crackpot is somehow "keeping company" with fascists is absurd. Michael Goldfarb asks:
Andrew, are you not troubled at all by the creeps who've signed on to the Paul campaign, or the fact that he is so completely unperturbed by their support that he has yet to distance himself in any way from it? Maybe not--Sullivan's "simple message" to Ron Paul supporters: "You're welcome here." That includes the Nazis, or no?
There are plenty of reasons to be perturbed when loons and hate-mongers support a candidacy. But this game of guilt-by-association can be played endlessly. I tend to place greater emphasis on loons and hate-mongers that candidates actively seek out. Pat Robertson is a loon and an anti-Semite and a vicious homophobe who blamed Americans for 9/11. Giuliani didn't receive some unsolicited money from him; he actually stood on a platform and embraced him. Why one standard for Paul and another for Giuliani? If Obama embraced Louis Farrakhan as a supporter, you think Goldfarb and Kirchick would be silent? They'd have a cow because it's unthinkable. But naked bigotry is more than thinkable in today's GOP: it's integral to it. What's the difference between Farrakhan and Robertson? I can't see any. Maybe Goldfarb and Kirchick can spell it out.
Giuliani also promoted and endorsed a seriously mobbed up man to be head of the DHS; he fully embraces and employs a priest credibly accused of sex abuse of a minor (and refuses to distance himself from him); and actively endorses torture as a foreign policy weapon. Jamie Kirchick actually supports Giuliani for president - but is hyper-ventilating about a $500 check that Paul hasn't even decided what to do with! There you have the massive double-standards on the neocon right.
Here's an idea: when Giuliani disowns his abusing priest, his mafia-consigliere and his anti-Semitic nutcase, Ron Paul should send back the $500. Deal?
Sorry, I thought we were talking about the articles from the 90's that Dondero wrote.
No, this seems to be something new, and not the stuff that has so totally been vetted and disproven so we don't have to worry about it at all ok?
Were those newsletters from the 90s really written by Dondero, or are you just joshing?
I only wish I was able to express how hard I'm laughing at you, SIV.
Wow, yeah, using the phrase "spade work" is exactly like saying that 85% of the black men in Washington are criminals.
You sure got me there!
Round and round we go, the propagandists put on a mighty fine show.
joe,
Yeah but she actually said it.Hillary doesn't say anything without careful deliberation and scripting. That is why she won't be interviewed or take questions from anyone but shills.
If there were a Ken Shultz Newsletter, regardless of whether it were written by me or my associates, the chances of it calling Martin Luther King a gay pedophile, or containing any racist invective whatsoever actually, would be really, really low.
Just watched the video; this is the same bull as the newsletter articles that have been known about for years. He accuses Jesse Benton of originally saying that the newsletter was written by Paul himself (?!), then changing his story afterward. This is a strange assertion, since Dr Paul himself said he didn't write all of the newsletter back in 1996 and since.
According to Kirchik, he was 'speaking in code' at the pro-secession conference. I tell you, the 9/11 Truthers have nothing on this guy when it comes to conspiracy theorizing.
Also the fact that this guy looks exactly like me only much gayer and fatter this si the best troll ever okay its too early for vodka but im gonna drink some moore woop
HAHAHA, he speaks in code!!!!!! GIVE JAMIE A TIN HAT!!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
This guy is so outraged and wants blood so bad you can see it in his eyes.
Ron Paul is not a racist,,,Or when he says "We dont get our rights because we belong to groups, we get our rights because we are all individuals" that must be code for, I'll meet you guys at 7pm at the barn, bring the hood and cross to burn,,
WHAT A JOKE!!!!
joe,
The examples he gives in the video are already known about. He talks about the slurring of Barbara Jordan, which has been known about for a long time. Obviously, I'm keeping an open mind, but this had better be completely different from the stuff that's already known, or I'm calling shenanigans on TNR.
Jamie Kirchik looks like Frank Luntz after the Huckabee diet.
I don't know the man, and I doubt he's a racist. ...but I don't understand how a guy who would run for office could let somebody publish something like that under his name.
...oh well, at least he doesn't want to universalize health care. Is that what I'm supposed to say?
The New Republic
1) Part Owned by Steinhart a pro Israel proponent ( having problems with the Dr. Paul's stance of no longer sending US cash to Israel)
2) Part owned by Can West ( FOX Sportsworld is a subsidiary of theirs)can you say payback for exposing an FOX fraud?
3)Look up Stephen Glass, L Seigel,Shalit,Ackerman,Beauchamp: their former so called "journalists" that have been publically shamed and fired for outright journalistic fabrication, plagerism and more.
We are seeing the "DIRTY TRICKS" like "Swiftboat" (John Kerry) and McCain's "illegitimate" daughter being played here. Those were filthy lies and so are these but because the public wasn't informed of the real truth in time and their chances for election were destroyed just as they are trying to destroy Dr. Paul. Don't fall for it! This Ultra liberal trash rag must be petrified of Dr. Paul's message to try this crap.
I wanna pinch his cheeks and give him a kiss DO YOU HEAR THAT JAMES KIRCISHCISHCHK! A PINCH AND A KISS
None of this corresponds to the language or tone that Ron Paul uses, or the political views he holds. The mild-mannered decency of Ron Paul is obvious.
ahhh he speaks in code! yes. In code.
Saying that all Southern secessionists are racist is prejudice as well. Practice what you preach Mr. James Kirchick.
I would consider that Ron has a truely consistent voting record. He does what he says he will do. He is an honest man. He is honorable. I will accept his explanation- if any explanation is required.
Respectfully,
Alan W. Moorehead
I was willing - just barely - to give Paul the benefit of the doubt about the couple of newsletters from the 90s. It's within the realm of possibility that a couple of things that directly contradict his personal philosophy could slip out.
But if this goes back to the 1970s - The Ron Paul Newsletter, published by Ron Paul Productions - and there has been a consistent pattern of saying godawful stuff about black people, then that's that. It's like Ken Shultz said at 8:57.
I see too many arguments on this thread along the lines of "Ron Paul can't be a racist, because he's a libertarian." That is blind partisanship, people.
They're smearing him because they hate him. He stands for everything they hate: the Constitution, liberty, limited government, non-intervention, etc, etc. They also fear him, fear that even if he doesn't win, he will take votes away from them. He's already trounced Giuliani hard in an actual primary. If he was only polling at 0%, they would be ignoring him.
"The New Republic
1) Part Owned by Steinhart a pro Israel proponent ( having problems with the Dr. Paul's stance of no longer sending US cash to Israel)
2) Part owned by Can West ( FOX Sportsworld is a subsidiary of theirs)can you say payback for exposing an FOX fraud?
3)Look up Stephen Glass, L Seigel,Shalit,Ackerman,Beauchamp: their former so called "journalists" that have been publically shamed and fired for outright journalistic fabrication, plagerism and more."
But did they ever publish anything accusing Martin Luther King of being a gay pedophile?
...and if so, are they running for President?
We are seeing the "DIRTY TRICKS" like "Swiftboat" (John Kerry) and McCain's "illegitimate" daughter being played here.
Christine
The Swiftboat veterans offered unrefuted facts and their personal opinions. There were no "dirty tricks" involved.
Where dem white boys at?
Oh, wingnuts crashing into each other!
Getcha popcorn.
Joe
If you mean "the fleet footed black men" newletters - I doubt Dondero wrote them. They were too well put together.
I doubt Eric could have constructed such a sophisticated argument. He is a moron and lacks the mental capacity.
Get back to us when you're doing this as Congressman. Many things are delegated to staff under the assumption that they won't act a fool. Printing a newsletter is one of those things.
You can't see how it would happen because I'm guessing you've never done anything comparable to being a Congressman. Many people think that things which they don't understand are easy to do.
It's very disappointing that some people's belief in Ron Paul can be undermined so easily - and all because of such an obvious smear-job.
joe,
Kirchick responds to Carlson's question of how all this could have gone under the radar till now by saying that it came from when he was out of Congress, and you can get away with more when you're not in Congress.
Dr Paul has been in Congress from 1976-1984 and 1996 to present. So, either Kirchick is wrong about it being from when he wasn't in Congress, or he's wrong about it spanning 20 years. Even assuming he hit the ground running and entered full racist mode in 1984, and stopped on a dime in 1996, that's only 12 years.
Ken,
Paul has been in and out of government.
The story as it has been represented to me is that while he was out of government, he was approached and asked if his name could be used to promote a libertarian newsletter, and he said yes. The newsletter was the Ron Paul Report in the way that a video game might be Tony Hawk Pro Skating or John Madden Football. I don't think Hawk or Madden write a lot of code.
Paul should have known better, because let's face it - when dealing with libertarians you never know if they're going to whig out and start putting in articles telling people to drink silver, or telling people to resist enforcement of the tax code with guns and pipe bombs. Heck, if I was one of the writers I'd be likely to put an article in titled "Bill O'Reilly is a Smelly Cunt". I doubt Paul gave a shit until he decided to run for Congress again.
Stop believing the bullshit Kirchik is feeding you. There was one newsletter. One. The only pattern in sight is the pattern of his opponents dredging up this one single newsletter every time they get a bowel movement.
Kirchick: Actually, last week on MSNBC he touted a book called "The Real Lincoln" by a guy named Thomas DiLorenzo, who is a neo-confederate.
Oh, this will get a nifty response from DiLorenzo I'm sure.
I thought black people are animals. Just like white people, orientals, and the rest.
Now if he had said black people were fungus, that would be news.
You're right, tarran, that certainly doesn't read like Dondero.
And Dondero spends too much time complaining that Paul hasn't hired enough black or Latino staffers.
It doesn't much read like Ron Paul's writing, either.
Best case scenario, he's like an absentee landlord who doesn't know what's going on in his building.
I could say I'm surprised Tucker Carlson would let himself be used to put this out; but, I'm not.
Who invented the term 'neoconservative'? I know I read it in Rand. She used it disparagingly of course. Only a Neocon could conclude that it was a secret codeword for "Jew". Being Jewish herself, perhaps Rand was transmitting in code that she was actually a neocon, disagreed with her own philosophy, and was a closet theocratic Hegelian.
This story is getting old...been explained over and over.....
No, Kirchick himself gives the period as 1988 to 1994, when Paul was not in Congress.
Oh COME ON.
This is supposedly from a circulated newsletter.
As if, for the first time, this is suddenly discovered. The guy ran for president on the Libertarian ticket and would have been creamed then. He's been running for congress for 30 years on and off, and never has this been discovered.
Heck, any of the people he beat when running for congress would have paid big big bucks for these newsletters, but they don't appear until NOW.
Yeah, I believe it. Sure.
crimethink,
KIrchick was referring to one specific set of writings with that "out of Congress" remark. He also mentions the newsletter going back to the 1970s.
Brandybuck,
Stop believing the bullshit Kirchik is feeding you. There was one newsletter. One. How do you know? The newsletters - newsletters have editions, you know - haven't been put up on the internet yet.
Who gives a good dog damned!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why do you post such trash?
@#$!#@!@#$!@#$!#@$!@#$!@#$!@#$!#$!#$
He speaks in codes that only us racist libertarians can understand, haha.
Oh man, they must be frightened about New Hampshire tomorrow to spring tripe like this at the 11th hour.
He just taped Leno. He's on a plane heading back to N.H. The timing of this was perfect; however, don't think he doesn't have a response already prepared. It's just a matter of him landing and releasing it.
This is an old story. Ron Paul had a guy that wrote his newsletters back in the eighties. This guy wrote some of his own personal nastiness in a couple of these letters and Paul fired him. The media has been trying to rehash this for months.
If you have ever heard Ron Paul speak, you know that he doesn't have a racist or discriminatory bone in his body.
The media digs in Pauls closet for dirt. Ron Paul's closet is clean, so they try to pass others words for his. Remember who in politics is honest and who isn't.
Does this story really surprise anyone?
And stop spoofing me, asshats.
I bet there is the stuff that is already known about, one other thing, and then a bunch of stuff saying we shouldn't give aid to Israel. That will be the "code."
joe,
Yes, the specific set of writings that use racist language and disparage MLK, etc. Tucker didn't restrict his question to any specific quote.
If some of the racist stuff was published while Dr Paul was in Congress, why is Kirchick using the fact that he was out of Congress as an excuse for why it hadn't been discovered?
In any case, in a few hours, we'll know what he's got.
Even if Ron Paul wrote the article that appeared in his newsletter more than a decade ago, what exactly is racist about what he said. Reading the whole article (http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/g/ftp.py?people/g/gannon.dan/1992/gannon.0793), I don't see anything in it that is racist. I suppose if one were to slice a few sentences out of it and put in a few ..... you could make it look racist. But reading the whole thing I don't see anything racist in it.
BREAKING NEWS: John McCain was a member of the Keating Five!
Pure unfounded political attack.
"I'm probably going to get pilloried for this, but setting Slavery aside, is there anything wrong with the concept, or "right" to secede per se"
The abolitionists went there (I mean, mentioned the "S" word) first:
http://veryidea.blogspot.com/2007/12/1847-debate-on-abolition-and-disunion.html
Also, here's the state's rights argument for defying the Fugitive Slave Act:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Massachusetts
Too bad we never learned about these things in school.
CL
This is trivial, but I wanted to ask.
Did Jim Kirchick sound like he was really nervous, or was it the poor audio quality during the interview?
Ron Paul is taking on every vested interest there is, this kind of smear was only a matter of time.
Did Kirchick really say that Paul speaks in code?
Too bad we never learned about these things in school.
You mean it wasn't Enlightened, Racially Sensitive North vs. Evil Racist South?
Nick M.,
He surely did...it's in the video Matt Welch posted.
You know, as a response to an attack alleging that Ron Paul is racist, claiming that "The New Republic is owned by Zionists in bed with Fox" is a pretty weak argument.
The charge that John Edwards cheated on his dying wife and knocked me up is dirty politics.
1. Giuliani is tied statistically with Paul in NH after getting his ass handed to him in Iowa and would have to abandon his '50-State Strategy' if Paul beat him yet again, and could even put his candidacy in jeopardy.
2. The GOP is failing miserably in matchups vs. Obama and Clinton, and thus need the votes Paul is pulling to close the gap. The dumb thing about this is many, many Paul voters are supporting Paul for the simple reason that he *isn't* like the rest of the GOP and this giant bump won't materialize in enough numbers for it to be effective against Obama or possibly even Clinton.
As an aside, I wouldn't be surprised if Dondero handed the story to TNR, given his years of close proximity to Paul. Of anyone, I'd think he to be the likeliest to take anything about Paul and twist it into a smear just ripe for the NH primary election where Paul stands to benefit most.
To be honest, joe, I think the newsletter was penned by Gary North or someone in his circle. It's important to note that Gary North was a staffer for Ron Paul did work for him during the early days of Ron Paul's political career.
Gary North is a Christian Reconstructionist, a member of a movement calling for a Christian version of sharia to be imposed throughout the world. he also tends to write apocalyptic articles about coming societal collapse.
Gary North still is associated in Ron Paul's circle, namely his writing on economics are routinely published on lewrockwell.com. Lew Rockwell, of course, was another Ron Paul staffer, and is still close to him. The Mises Institute publishes Ron Paul's books, and Ron Paul is a regular commenter on lewrockwell.com
Romney says Chineese are stupid gooks.
Huckabee's computer littered with child pornography.
McCain say more glass needed and only way to get it is put a nuke in middle eastern sands.
Thompson admits to having downs syndrome.
Guiliani is revealed as closet homosexual.
Paul reveals his attempt to reinstate constitutional powers and restore PERSONAL RIGHTS and FREEDOMS.
> Mr. X | January 7, 2008, 9:28pm | #
>
> You know, as a response to an attack alleging
> that Ron Paul is racist, claiming that "The New
> Republic is owned by Zionists in bed with Fox"
> is a pretty weak argument.
First, what makes you think there aren't a bunch of shills writing to this as we speak?
Second, I think this is a pretty obvious smear job. Why were the letters found 1 day before the NH primary?
Why aren't the letters available now? If they have them, why can't we see them, now?
Why did it take 20 years to find these? I mean, all the people that lost to Paul when he ran for congress and won would have loved these.
It seems a bit unlikely to say the least. Sad that our nation has been reduced to outright dishonesty. We have a pathetic group of people in power.
tarran, even North is far removed from other Reconstructionists. I do think North is idiosyncratic, but he couldn't hurt a fly in a million years.
"Get back to us when you're doing this as Congressman. Many things are delegated to staff under the assumption that they won't act a fool. Printing a newsletter is one of those things."
Some mistakes 'll get you fired if you're workin' for me. ...first time! Take racist invective using my name, for instance...
Barack Obama is a coke dealing Muslim Manchurian candidate.
A lousy run of luck, in which he hired a guy who wrote racist stuff under his name in the 70s, and then another guy who wrote racist stuff under his name in the 80s, and then another guy who wrote racist stuff under his name in the 90s?
I suppose it's possible. But only because I want to be polite.
If this pans out. I will be very upset. Not only will I regret the time and money I've given to the campaign. This will undo all the progress the Paul campaign has made for libertarian politics.
The timing is very suspect. If this is an elaborate ruse, and TNR is making a mountain out of a mole hill, well all I can say is that sort of scummy yellow journalism deserves repercussions.
OK... am I the only one unnerved by James Kirchick's simian appearance? As for the current flap, first, publishing a newsletter is not the same as writing it. How much of this stuff is Ron Paul and how much is just a bunch of idiots publishing crap under Ron Paul's name? Hell, I don't know. I do agree that giving libertarian's a newsletter with yoru name on it is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenaged boys (apologies to O'Rourke). On a positive note, when Kirchick started with the "talking in code" crap, I began thinking that libertarians have not cornered the crazy market.
I did not, have gastric bypass surgery, with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.
Why did it take 20 years to find these? I mean, all the people that lost to Paul when he ran for congress and won would have loved these.
Where's Paul's district? Cambridge, Massachusetts? San Francisco? Some college town in a midwestern state?
all I can say is that sort of scummy yellow journalism deserves repercussions.
If I had a subscription, I would cancel it, by golly.
joe, 1988-1996. see video.
This is so absurd. Look at someone's values, and then decide whether a story has merit. Frankly, after spending so much time with Ron Paul, Tucker should have had more skepticism.
Ron Paul doesn't want to force people to do things.
That's a core value of his.
He applies it so thoroughly, that if someone says something racist, it doesn't matter whether the person donated money to him, or whether the person wrote some articles in a publication that he is associated with. He believes in free speech, FAR MORE than the Republican demagogues.
Tactically speaking, I thought his answer about the racist donating $500 to his campaign was perfect. He said that's $500 less that racist doesn't have to spend on something useful, because Paul said he has no intention on spreading a racist message (just go look at his home page, racism is one of menu items on his main menu of issues).
As for apologizing, yes I'm sure Paul doesn't like some of the stuff other people wrote in that publication he put his name to. He also has no desire to ever gamble or go see a prostitute, but he isn't going to turn gamblers or Nevada brothels away from supporting his campaign.
He's a libertarian. Let people do what they want as long as they don't interfere with other people doing what they want.
As Paul continues to get more donations, and better poll numbers, expect more outrageous comments to come out in the media. And if it's like most media, they won't bother to dig in deeply to understand what it's about.
OTOH, when someone from the media does ask Paul and they have the patience to listen. Invariably there is a logical explanation to the controversy.
But you can't have the attention span of a 2 year old if you want to support Paul.
Yes, Jesus and Lucifer are brothers.
Jose, you are NOT the only one unnerved by Kirchick's appearance.
As far as the idea that a politician cannot possibly talk in code or use dogwhistle politics, do you think the same thing about Pat Buchanon's description of Capitol Hill as "Zionist Occupied Territory?" How about the liberal use of "our traditional way of life" by segregationists in the 50s and 60s? How about the anti-crime ad against Willie Horton?
joe,
We're not sure whether it dates back to the 70s and early 80s yet. Kirchick's answers on that topic were contradictory. Again, wait till we have the full story before you start insinuating.
Jerry, going back to the 1970s. See video.
"I am running for president to legalize polygamy througout the nation"
"You can't see how it would happen because I'm guessing you've never done anything comparable to being a Congressman. Many people think that things which they don't understand are easy to do.
Actually, I'm a self-made guy. Left home at 14, worked my way through a prep school, workin' on farms, unloading trucks. You name it. I've started numerous businesses. Now I'm a developer, gettin' bigger all the time. A lot of the people I used to work for want to come work for me. ...not a bad measure of success.
...but what's any of that got to do with Ron Paul's apparent lapse in judgement?
Are you folks ignorant of the true story here? It was the Reverend Ralph Abernathy who made these claims against MLK in the book he published before he died. The media pretty well ignored Abernathy who was MLK's right hand man. I believe the Paul newsletter was simply discussing what MLK's friend, fellow pastor and close associate said of him...that he was incredibly unfaithful to his wife, had numerous afrairs that even included relations with young men. Do a little research and you will find the book.
If you have any doubts about Ron Paul, watch this video Ron appeals to supporters
I thought the person who wrote the racist newsletter was fired right away? Or is this a new racist newsletter? If it is, where can I find it?
Vince Foster had it comin'.
Jim McDougal couldn't keep his mouth shut, so we shut it for him.
"OK... am I the only one unnerved by James Kirchick's simian appearance?"
No.
"You mean it wasn't Enlightened, Racially Sensitive North vs. Evil Racist South?"
No, it was "Enlightened, Racially Sensistive people would never consider disunion", "Secession is for evil racists", etc. What I really meant was that the two documents I linked to were never mentioned in the public schools I went to even though Wendell Phillips and the Fugitive Slave Act were covered topics. I seem to recall, against the ravages of age and heroic efforts on my part to forget everything I learned in school, that it was a foregone conclusion that Wendell Phillips was a dangerous radical. No reason given (that I remember, of course), but I now surmise that it was his invocation of the "S" word that could have gotten him so labeled.
CL
When I am President, I, Me, I, ME ME ME, I will blow up the whole world with my new military toys.
Rho's right, Ken, you haven't done anything comparable to being a Congressman. You've actually contributed to American society.
joe,
It's not an impossible thing...but it can't be the first assumption, without some other evidence to corroborate it. Occam's Razor and all.
Those STOP signs are really hard to see when you are drunk.
"As an aside, I wouldn't be surprised if Dondero handed the story to TNR, given his years of close proximity to Paul. Of anyone, I'd think he to be the likeliest to take anything about Paul and twist it into a smear just ripe for the NH primary election where Paul stands to benefit most."
Dondero is suspiciously absent from this thread.
Yes I am a minister, and I also love little boys.
"A lousy run of luck, in which he hired a guy who wrote racist stuff under his name in the 70s, and then another guy who wrote racist stuff under his name in the 80s, and then another guy who wrote racist stuff under his name in the 90s?"
If that's the way it is, then I don't get that either.
...and I'm not sayin' the man's a racist--I seriously doubt he's a racist. ...but I don't understand making the same mistakes over and over again.
joe, going back to the 1970s OR from 1988-1996, depending on which one fits the story better. See video.
"Jefferson is a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia Mulatto father"
Here's the person who really said those things about MLK.
Privacy for the dead? - Ralph Abernathy's autobiography and revelations about Martin Luther King Jr
National Review, Nov 24, 1989
Privacy for the Dead?
Does anybody except me care whether or not this is true?
I only pretend to have a clue, and that is when I am most sarcastic in my attacks on others.
"Does anybody except me care whether or not this is true?"
Yes.
"Religion, evolution, sexuality, and race are all outside the scope of Federal business and have no place in political discussion except to divide the people"
ed, this is NOT TRUE, and shame on you for buying it.
Oh, I know. He was writing in code while he was in Congress, and then let things slide when he left. Then, when he went back into Congress, he started writing in code.
I dont buy it. I am for Paul.
Joe and Ken Schultz in agreement with me.... (plunk) Sorry, I was a little disoriented and fell out of my chair.
I wish I could have "put some ice on it" and been OK like Juanita Broderick.
That a boy ed, the truth shall set you free.
"fair tax punishes consumption"
crimethink,
Occam's razor, when applied to what appeared in The Ron Paul Freedom Report, would not seem to steer us towards the conclusion that Ron Paul was wholly unaware of what appeared therein over the course of 20 years.
So I re-watched the video. "Most of" the worst stuff appeared "when he was out of Congress." Once again, I guess we'll see.
Can someone reliable summarize this for us unfortunate ones who are still at work?
The Ron Paul Survival Report was first published in 1985, and allegations of racism contained in it were used against Dr Paul in the 1996 election. So, I think it's safe to assume that he didn't go on publishing racist invective after that time.
So, we have a maximum of 11 years of material here (unless there were other Ron Paul periodicals before then).
> Mr. X | January 7, 2008, 9:28pm | #
> You know, as a response to an attack alleging > that Ron Paul is racist, claiming that "The
> New Republic is owned by Zionists in bed with > Fox" is a pretty weak argument.
If you were directing this towards my comment, one should note I didn't say that TNR is "owned by Zionists."
However, some people who strongly support Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians view anyone who is against foreign aid to Israel as anti-Semites.
Note that "some people who strongly support Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians view anyone who is against foreign aid to Israel as anti-Semites" is not code for "Jews," rather it means "some people who strongly support Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians view anyone who is against foreign aid to Israel as anti-Semites."
Also, this is obviously a total hatchet job. Even if the article and newsletters reveal that Ron Paul is a frothing Nazi, why is it coming out now? At the beginning of the day of the NH primary? 20 years of analog newsletters seems like a bit much to review such that the proper time for publishing them would be at midnight.
My conspiracy theory is: TNR desperately wants to make sure that someone who supports the war wins the election. This could be HRC or all the Republicans but Paul. If HRC drops out soon, then Paul's criticisms of the war, despite the fact that he no chance of winning, would help to weaken the Republican field in the general election.
crimethink,
Oh, I know. He was writing in code while he was in Congress, and then let things slide when he left. Then, when he went back into Congress, he started writing in code.
Uh, no, the newsletter stopped publication entirely when he went back to Congress.
Did somebody say something about twisting the facts to fit the story they wanted?
It would be much easier to evaluate these charges with some evidence. Now we've got to wait until tomorrow, after many people in NH have voted, to see the evidence?
Hey bob, Fair tax is a new name and method for the IRS.
Hey, writing the newsletter does not make someone hurtful.
In fact, if you read the newsletter closely, it isn't making a racial point so much as a cultural point, and is entirely consistent with Gary North's other writings. If you ignore the tone, it sound a lot like what Bill Cosby has been saying recently.
With that being said, we know Ron Paul is too trusting. I cite as exhibit A Eric Dondero, who is Ron Paul's Bernie Kerik.
Does this poor judgement disqualify Ron Paul from the presidency? I honestly think that it does. I have strong reservations about his judgement, much as I have a soft spot for the guy.
I think that Ron Paul is a moses; he will see the promised land from afar but will not lead his people into it.
On a more serious note, do libertarians really need any more bad news? Can we find a couple of non-kooks to "stand and deliver"? Paging Thoreau! I can't tell anyone I have libertarian leanings without feeling a little silly. Reading this about Paul, true or not, gives me the inevitable sinking "the other shoe is dropping" sensation.
Politicians suck and Ron Paul is a politician, therefor, etc...so bad stuff is possible.
That being said, I think I will judge him on his decades of consistent behavior and public statements (which can actually be looked up, verified, judged objectively) until more than the hyperbolic and conveniently timed claims of a partisan opponent stand against him.
The only thing holding me back from voting for Paul is naming his kid Rand. Come on, now. That's like an Apple fanboy (the one who's been able to reproduce) naming his kind Jobs.
SWEET BABY JESUS! Are you telling me there's a connection between Ron Paul and terminal nut job Gary North?
I doubt they're worried about Paul winning the primary outright, let alone the nomination. This is probably intended to depress independent turnout for Paul, lowering the total number of votes and thus raising the percentage for another candidate, such as Giuliani.
Fing Fang Foom,
You are completely correct that TNR makes a habit of accusing people who don't support the Likudnik line of being anti-Semites. Its owner, Martin Peretz, wrote in a story about the dismissal of Lawrence Summers as Harvard's president that it was due to "anti-Jewish animus" among the Harvard faculty. No, really. That actually happened.
And they are certainly not above doing hatchet jobs on anti-Iraq War politicians. But these days, they are down on the war, too.
But so what? So they've got a motive to release these newsletters, and maybe the timing is suspicious? The newsletters are going to say what they say. Bad New Republic does not necessary equal Good Ron Paul.
Does anyone else see how convenient the timing is on this article's release? They will have this plastered all of the television in NH tomorrow...as a tool to alter the vote. Our media is pathetic.
"Does this poor judgement disqualify Ron Paul from the presidency? I honestly think that it does. I have strong reservations about his judgement, much as I have a soft spot for the guy."
I'm afraid you could be right, and I hope you're wrong.
Right now, I can't think of an explanation for this lapse of judgement that would make it okay with me, but I'm willing to listen to him explain it and I want to believe.
"Does anyone else see how convenient the timing is on this article's release?"
No question in my mind that they timed this.
The New Republic is a Democratic magazine, and they turned against the war a year ago.
They're opposed to everything Rudy Guiliani stands for domestically, and wrote a hit piece about him last week. They were among the first to jump on the Bernie Kerik story.
Where is the proof this is a big story anyway? A few minutes on Tucker fucking Carlson? geez.
A journalist nobody has ever head of, looking to make a name for himself, could do worse than release a sensational story about a politician the day before the NH primary.
As could a magazine whose subscription numbers have been following Tanya Harding's career trajectory.
Oh, now I understand... TNR is the Wicked Witch of the West and Kirchik is a flying monkey.
I hate those monkeys.
As for Gary North, I haven't heard that name since the Y2K nonsense in '98 and '99. I ran into some survivalist types on the Internet who were convinced Y2K was going to be TEOTWAWKI. Gary North was a big cheerleader for the doomsayers... while making a tidy living selling them his newsletter. It's a strange world out there.
This stuff appeared in National Review in 1989 when they reviewed Abernathy's book. This stuff came from Abernathy, not Ron Paul.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n22_v41/ai_8134905
Matt just changed the original post to say that they're going to post the newsletter material tomorrow afternoon, not at midnight!
So, we're just going to have this accusation hanging in the air for the primary, with no actual data to refute.
Boy, FAUX must be TERRIFIED of Dr. Paul! What drivel. If Ron Paul is doing so poorly as a Presidential candidate...why is this NOISE the ONLY thing FAUX airs?
Because Ron Paul's message has the potential to unseat the corporate machine's that presently RUN this country. Rupert and his ilk stand to lose MUCH!!!!
Dr. Paul doesn't even have to get elected, for that to happen!
The story is trash and we all know it....
I didn't say anything about success or running a business. You're confirming what I said about how you don't seem to understand what a Congressman does and therefore think it must be easy to do.
A Congressman has thousands of pesky constituents and needs to work closely with a bunch of other folks with the same problems. Add to that that Ron Paul has a solid reputation for getting things done for his constituents--part of the reason why he keeps getting re-elected. On top of that he has to run for his job every two years in a popularity contest--campaigning, fund raising, all kinds of annoying busywork.
Your point about firing the guy who wrote these things was a good one. Which, as I recall, Dr. Paul did. So what's your complaint again?
The timing is definitely suspect. And now TNR is saying they'll release the article tomorrow afternoon. Why? Probably to give Paul less time to respond to it. The Tucker interview and the fact that it's coming out sometime tomorrow is all reporters need to do print stories for tomorrow's papers. In any event, if this blows up in a big way it will be hard for the MLK Day moneybomb to raise money. And that moneybomb will guarantee a whole lot of controversy.
I do care about whether this is true or not
Tomorrow afternoon is slightly less sketchy.
Donna,
Fox News has nothing to do with this. The article is in National Review, and the TV appearance was on MSNBC.
I have no idea what to believe right now. I want to look carefully at what's being claimed.
Sadly, I wouldn't be shocked if some of it is true. Libertarianism attracts some nuts, Ron Paul himself definitely holds some fringe positions, so there's no telling who might write what in whose newsletter.
And, truthfully, it's (sadly) possible that a conservative white guy of his age who holds some fringe positions might have gone through a stage where he wasn't entirely hostile to certain positions, you know what I mean?
Bottom line: I need to learn more before I draw any conclusions. I suspect some of this will shake out in the next few days.
cicero,
We had a money bomb on Guy Fawkes Day, and that didn't require Dr Paul to have a high opinion of Guy Fawkes...
Paul on race, circa 2002:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul68.html
"Conservatives and libertarians should fight back and challenge the myth that collectivist liberals care more about racism. Modern liberalism, however well intentioned, is a byproduct of the same collectivist thinking that characterizes racism. The continued insistence on group thinking only inflames racial tensions.
The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity."
If the accusations are true, and there are SIGNIFICANT new revelations here, it's better for Dr Paul to have it come out later.
If they aren't true, it's better for him to have it come out earlier, to give time for refutation.
"You're confirming what I said about how you don't seem to understand what a Congressman does and therefore think it must be easy to do.
You're confirming that you don't seem to understand that what I do for a living has nothing to do with Ron Paul's apparent lapse in judgement.
P.S. I was under the impression that the alleged outrages occurred while Dr. Paul was out of office.
As could a magazine whose subscription numbers have been following Tanya Harding's career trajectory.
We're going to have to part ways at this point, joe. I don't see it that way. Tanya Harding's appearance on Fox Celebrity Boxing gave her career the shot in the arm it has needed to coast on its own momentum for years.
Thoreau! My 9:58 p.m. comment invoked you and you have appeared!
After NH, it will be a nonstory because Paul's candidacy isn't going anywhere. This is just TNR piling on because the "story" is going stale quickly.
Boy, FAUX must be TERRIFIED of Dr. Paul!
What is with all the FAUX News and neocon shit when the piece is being published in a liberal rag?
crimetink, good point but I think this is different. Guy Fawkes isn't a national hero, and most Americans think of a hollywood movie when they see his name not the actual bomber. And Paul wasn't bashing Fawkes and calling him a gay pedophile while his supporters were using his name to try to raise money. I guess the question is does this TNR piece get picked up in real press.
Libertarianism attracts some nutshttp://www.highclearing.com/
It is true Ron Paul speaks to me in code. He tells me that January 8, 2007 is the day to rise up and begin the neo-confederate agenda of wearing confederate flags, drinking beer, and watching nascar.
Maybe those Nazis know who their man is.
And God bless him for that, Kim.
Glancing up the thread here, I don't think many of us consider Ron Paul a racist for this.
I see people questioning his judgement. Why did he let this happen more than once? ...if it indeed happened more than once.
Donna,
Tucker Carlson appears on MSNBC.
crimethink,
This article is in (Even) the (Liberal) New Republic.
rho,
No members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation have ever put out newsletter calling black people animals.
Secretary Rice,
There's something I've always wanted to ask you: what's Lawrence Eagleburger REALLY like?
Joe,
Where does ron paul call black people animals?
Dondero is suspiciously absent from this thread.
I am sure he's watching us all now and laughing. 1, 2, 3... there we go!
(wouldn't it be awesome if he actually shows up now? Then I'll regret not wishing $1M instead. Lets see.)
Stephen,
So, you've been doing that for a year, right?
Could be. If it's the 1980-something newsletters that's causing all the, then yes, he was out of office. And, as has been explained, he allowed his name to be used in association with a newsletter under which he did not sufficiently birddog. I suppose that's a lapse in judgement. Not a particularly horrible one; I imagine we've all made similar ones in trusting a friend or colleague. Only difference is that we're not running for President where our lapses in judgement 20 years ago becomes relevant.
If it came while he was in office, then the pressures of the job come into play.
I guess my point is that it's really easy for you to chuck potshots from the sidelines about how You'd Never Do Such A Thing. Which is almost certainly not true, but until you run for a very public national office we'll never know.
joe, TNR only looks like it turned against the war. They are part of a massive conspiracy.
I bet this is what Paul said about MLK:
"Who cares if MLK slept around? I wouldn't care if he were a gay pedophile; he did more to advance the cause of civil rights and the antiwar movement than anyone."
Jamie Kirchick thinks he is above reproach because he is Jewish and can simply yell "anti-Semite" at anyone who disagrees with him. That old ad hominem ruse is becoming increasingly less tolerated, even within the community. It is exactly Kirchick's ethnic and religious identification that motivates him, far more than his sexual or political identity. As such, he is very threatened by Paul's suggestion to let Israel stand on its own without U.S. taxpayer subsidy. That is what Kirchick's smear campaign is actually about. Kirchick claims to be a conservative, even a libertarian when it suits him, but his actions regarding Ron Paul demonstrate that his first loyalty is to Israel and not to the Constitution of the United States of America.
As near as I can tell, nobody has done so. If mere accusations are proof enough for you, then, well... bully for you, I guess.
Some people I know have told me that in essence, Ron paul simply lent his name out for the newsletter. Don't know if that's true, but if so, it would seem to jibe with him basically being overly trusting: "You want to use my name? That sound terrific!"
I think Ron Paul is simply excited about getting HIS message out and would talk to *anyone* who would listen. Just look at that video of him being interviewed in some kid's dorm room as an example.
I have no doubt that Thomas Jefferson would have favored allowing states to secede.
Well, yes! Several of the states specifically reserved the right to secede contingent to ratifying the Constitution. That was specifically the right the Revolutionary War was fought over - the right of the States to secede from Britain.
While not exhaustive, here's a column by Walter Williams outlining the history of that right.
Until the civil war, the right of secession was the ultimate check on abuses of power by the federal government.
Dr. Paul should simply say that he's sorry the ex-editor of his newsletter published an open letter praising Stalin on the occasion of his show trials,
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n17_v46/ai_15844166
Dr. Paul should also say he's sorry that the ex-editor was such a lying sleaze that Hayden ("Darth Vader") Christensen played him in the movie version of the story.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0323944/
Dr. Paul could also express his regret that it took a four-month "investigation" before a problem was acknowledged, with some of the investigating being in the impartial hands of the offender's wife.
http://gawker.com/news/apologies/the-new-republic-grudgingly-retracts-baghdad-diarist-stories-329277.php
Oh, wait, that's the *New Republic.* So why bring up old stuff?
By the way, no one can claim that this is a response to fifth-palce Ron Paul's sudden viability.
joe,
Reading these comments suggests a lot of Paul supporters used to be or are "your people"
I might have to go back to Fred Thompson
Too Damn many liberals stinkin' up the joint here
cicero,
What are you, kidding me?
Sigh. There was this newsletter, you see, titled "The Ron Paul Freedom Report..."
By the way, no one can claim that this is a response to fifth-palce Ron Paul's sudden viability.
You are going to eat your words Edward
No less an authority than Robert Novak predicts Paul will finish 6th !
[Jerry | January 7, 2008, 9:05pm | #
Saying that all Southern secessionists are racist is prejudice as well. Practice what you preach Mr. James Kirchick.]
Oh please. If you're still fighting that battle over 100 years later, you have issues you are not discussing. Also, you can't separate Southern secession from the attempt to preserve slavery - they were and are intertwined.
The South was not entitled to secede if its primary purpose in so attempting was to deprive a huge class of people of their liberty. The Southern secessionists have no place in a morally or philosophically consistent libertarian movement.
I'm sorry, joe, you're going to have to come up with a link or something.
Joe, do you have a link and/or the exact quote?
Some people I know have told me that in essence, Ron paul simply lent his name out for the newsletter. Don't know if that's true, but if so, it would seem to jibe with him basically being overly trusting: "You want to use my name? That sound terrific!"
This strikes me as the best case scenario.
If so: yeah, let's put that guy in charge of the federal government.
Some people I know have told me that in essence, Ron paul simply lent his name out for the newsletter. Don't know if that's true, but if so, it would seem to jibe with him basically being overly trusting: "You want to use my name? That sound terrific!"
It's certainly in character - that's what he did with the Ron Paul Liberty Dollars.
Of course, I'm not really sure that kind of naivety is a quality I want to see in a president. More than anything else, it's that kind of unworldliness that disturbs me about him...
Holy Christ!
More liberaltarians!
Well, we might also want to judge the quality of Kirchik's criticism by examining the other part of it - the claim that Paul is an associate of neoconfederates.
The basis for that claim appears to be that he accepted the invitation to speak to the Robert Taft club.
Well, Reason editors attended that speech. That would make Reason's editors "associates" of neoconfederates, too.
And Joe posts at Hit N' Run. That would make Joe an associate of neoconfederates, transitively via his association with Reason.
Joe, I'm horrified to learn of your neoconfederate associations.
rho, cicero,
Did either of you bother to click the link and watch the video?
Carson, who's been openly pro-Paul for some time, didn't dispute the contents at all.
Oh, wait, is this it?
Sounds to me like he's calling Crips and Bloods animals. And by "he", I mean the guy who actually wrote this, who we have heard explained was not Ron Paul. I guess you could make the case that Dr. Paul was lying and he actually did write this. Now all you have to do is explain how "Crips and Bloods" == "all blacks".
Fluffy, would you believe me if I told you I simply lent out my name to someone who's been posting here for six and half years, and didn't bother to check what he's been writing?
No. SRSLY. Would you believe that?
Are you hanging Paul based on how Tucker Carlson defends him?
Justin -
That's entirely the wrong way to frame the issue.
According to Kirchik, anyone who thinks states have the right to secede is a neoconfederate.
Well, I think states have the right to secede. But I also have stated here on several occasions that I wish John Brown had won at Harper's Ferry, and that his rebellion had caught every slaveholder sleeping in their beds.
Certainly the Lincoln-hatred of someone like Rockwell is based on a straightforward desire to see the US federal government weak and small, and not a desire to see slavery still practiced.
Wow, that's pretty repulsive, rho.
Unfortunately, the guy whose politics I don't like wasn't beaten and murdered by gang members.
Is there anything that you wouldn't defend as perfectly harmless if it appeared above Ron Paul's byline?
joe,
ha ha. I see. Your evidence is what someone on TV says Paul said. I guess I will have to wait until the article comes out. Hopefully it is cited.
News flash! I have in my hand a list of notorious anti-semites:
Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Nathan Glazer, Michael Novak, George Gilder, Irving Kristol, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Thomas Sowell, James Q. Wilson, Charles Krauthammer, Leon Kass, Richard John Neuhaus, George Weigel, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and William Kristol.
All of these people allowed their work to be republished in a book called *The Essential Neoconservative Reader.* As we know, "neoconservative" is a code word for jewish people, so by associating themselves with the termm "neoconservative" the above authors legitimated it, thereby giving aid and comfort to the anti-semites.
Or maybe these authors were tricked by the editor, Mark Gerson, into letting their work be included in the book. Maybe Gerson said it would be called *The Niceness Reader,* or something else inoffensive. When they saw the dread code word *Neoconservative* on the cover, they must have winced!
joe:
Well, joe, in all honesty, I think someone could just take "joe" without asking.
Now Taktix, on the other hand, he has his name trademarked.
See book review at
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0377/is_n126/ai_19101771
I think back to all the times I've been called a partisan, and I'm about to pee my pants laughing.
Give it up, fellas. We're in "that episode with that other man in the rest room was all a big misunderstanding" territory here.
Fluffy, would you believe me if I told you I simply lent out my name to someone who's been posting here for six and half years, and didn't bother to check what he's been writing?
Maybe I wouldn't believe of you, but I'd certainly believe it of some people. As I pointed out, there are other examples of Paul doing similar things, so it's not exactly without precedent.
Of course, there's obviously an argument as to whether that's a quality you want to see in a president.
and by someone I don't mean me; my name cannot be abbreviated!
(thus the lack of response)
Joe -
If you were in my 50's and didn't think you were going to run for Congress again, you might not give a shit. Particularly if you had been paid for the use of your name.
This could all be resolved if Dr. Paul would just reveal the truth that he is actually Sammy Davis,Jr. in disguise.
PROVE IT! Until then, I believe nothing because people HAVE to make stuff up just to make him look bad. Wah, ok, wah, go cry about it, then show me some proof!
And the funny thing is that this TNR person makes only claims now with "proof" to be published tomorrow? After the NH elections? NH voters won't go with that.
ha ha. I see. Your evidence is what someone on TV says Paul said.
Um, no, my evidence is what the guy on TV defending Ron Paul, who had apparently seen the newsletters, acknowledged.
It is a demonstrable fact that blacks have a greater propensity for violent and anti-social behavior. This is a result of the coddling welfare state, not some genetic curse. Pat Moynihan pointed this out years ago, but we as a society have done nothing to address this fact. Even if Paul had made some of those comments ... I dont have a problem with it. Now, can it sink his chances at attaining high political office? Yes, of course. Everyone knows you can't get the presidency by telling the truth that hurts.
I'm sure there will be a perfectly logical explanation for all of this, and I'm sure a number of people will find it all beyond question.
I think he said some of it was weird. The stuff he noted we already knew about.
I do think this questions his judgment.
Note, I don't actually support Paul (too many issues where I disagree with him), but this seems like BS.
Joe,
There's a big difference between something appearing under someone's byline and something appearing in a newsletter named after him. In any event, calling gang members animals is hardly anything to get worked up about. And it's certainly far, far different than saying blacks are animals. I've heard more hatred come out of John Edwards' mouth. Why is it bad to attack gang membres but ok to attack rich people? I think that's the point of the newsletter article actually. Political correctness run amuck.
Yeah, I hate to agree with Joe twice in one thread, but all of the attacks on Joe for partisanship ring a little hollow when some the posters here would defend Ron Paul even if he were convicted of killing Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. C'mon, guys. I can sympathize with some of Paul's positions on issues, but he's a kook. If there were an Ortega y Gasset newsletter, I'd triple proof every page.
Joe -
I guess tomorrow we'll see exactly what Kirchik thinks he's got.
From the interview, it sounds like Kirchik himself asserts that the majority of what he's talking about is "code". If that "code" turns out to be "property rights", or "Tenth Amendment", or "states' rights", then Kirchik can go fuck himself.
Carson, who's been openly pro-Paul for some time, didn't dispute the contents at all.
Come on, joe. How is he supposed to dispute the contents of something he hasn't seen? Kirchick says Dr Paul said this and that in some of his newsletters...how is Carlson going to dispute this without access to the newsletters themselves, or at least some type of specificity?
It would be like if I said, "oh yeah, joe called George Bush a closet Nazi in some Hit & Run thread at some time in the past seven years, and I'll post the link tomorrow sometime." How is you or anyone else expected to refute this?
Not sure what you're getting at here. I'm taking Dr. Paul's explanation that he's allowed things to be published under his name at face value. It tracks with his public record regarding race, and the passages I've read do not track with his writing style.
If TNR can convincingly show that Dr. Paul has made many such offensive statements, and that he actually did write them or directly authorized them, then no, I will not defend him. It would have to be pretty convincing, and not based around what Tucker Carlson says on TV.
BTW, what I quoted came from one of those newsletters that many people agree that it isn't Dr. Paul's writing style.
If there were an Ortega y Gasset newsletter, I'd triple proof every page.
I agree, and if Paul failed to do that, it seriously calls his judgment into question. I don't think the jury is in yet on exactly what occurred here, and until I've seen the evidence I'm not prepared to take a side on the matter either way. Best to keep an open mind until all the facts have come to light....
For some reason LRC is not putting anything on its blog. Are they scrambling re how to respond?
How many more times will this issue claim to be the smoking gun?
This issue was discussed in the early part of Ron's run.
I have followed Ron Paul for years I have never heard him say one negative thing about other races.
Ron also obtains a very high percentage of the black vote more so then most other GOP members.
I have also seen many "L", "R" and "D" who are black who provide great articles of high praise for Ron's run.
Consider the source the New Republic are pro-war, pro bush.
A few weeks ago they stated that Paul released a internet Bot which turned out to be false..
They then claimed a few weeks ago that Ron supported members of the clan when it appears to me and others that the guy just took a photo short of Paul.
Besides how many times do we have to read the FBI uses groups like the KKK and others to co-opt an issue?
As for me and my home I will vote for Ron Paul. A man who respects all races.
As I said to Ken Shultz, that's pretty easy to say.
Didn't Ron Paul go back to his medical practice when he was out of Congress?
TNR has been rocked with various hideously embarrassing scandals recently. They of all people should know that goofy things happen in an organization, and that doesn't necessarily mean the whole thing is rotten from top to bottom.
Fluffy,
The "code" reference appeared to be limited to the neo-confederate stuff.
crimethink,
The spot left me with the impression that Carson had the newsletters, or at least quotes of the relevant sections, in front of him.
And did you read the column tarran linked to? I'm perfectly comfortable using the term "racist" for that crap.
What about you, rho, did you read that? It most certainly does NOT track with the statements Paul has made in public about race.
I'm taking Dr. Paul's explanation that he's allowed things to be published under his name at face value. I think it's mindbogging naive for you to think that, and don't believe for a nanosecond that you would extend that rather extraordinary benefit of the doubt to a politician you didn't support.
Secretary Rice,
There's something I've always wanted to ask you: what's Lawrence Eagleburger REALLY like?
I don't need to say much more than the following phrase: Mister Eight Inches.
JOyG,
Ron Paul *could* have killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Remember, the real killers have never been found!
Someone who gets elected and re-elected to Congress by defying the political power strucure pretty much has to be something of a weirdo. It's Darwinian selection.
The people who get elected to Congress as supporters of the establishment are weird enough - exhibitionist, grandiose glad-handlers. And that's if you go along with the establishment. To have the stubborness to swim against the current and still get sent back to Congress requires a personality somewhat different from the normal. You have to be *really* self-confident, which usually translates to eccentric. Otherwise you wonder what the heck you're doing, and retreat, embarrassed, from the public eye.
The deal-breaker for me would be if Dr. Paul suddenly did something beyond the normal range of craziness, like changing his skin color (to blue) or getting attacked by a giant rabbit, or spending Easter being serviced by an intern, or claiming that the Constitution gives him monarchical powers.
Pig Mannix,
Ron Paul said back in 2001 that he let someone else publish the Ron Paul Survival Report without checking it. That part is already known (if we are to believe Dr Paul).
The question, I guess, is whether there are other instances of racist writings, at other times, that were published under his name or by him.
Let me bring some rationality into this "debate." All of you, hold your tongue (or hands) until the Jamie Kirchick item appears tomorrow and then judge for yourselves. We'll see if this is indeed a more serious charge than the previous newsletter incident.
or spending Easter being serviced by an intern
but any other time of year is OK, right?
"If there were an Ortega y Gasset newsletter, I'd triple proof every page."
I'd totally call it the Ortega y Gasset Gazette.
Ortega y Gasset Quarter-ly Gazette even better
I think it's mindbogging naive for you to think that, and don't believe for a nanosecond that you would extend that rather extraordinary benefit of the doubt to a politician you didn't support.
It depends.
A major national Democrat or Republican? Probably not.
A Green officeholder, OTOH? I probably would. Even though I hate Greens.
I just know enough about the way minor party / fringe politics works to know that everybody involved, at every level of sanity, wants to plaster the officeholder's name on every piece of crap they put out.
I can absolutely see, for example, a situation where Nader's name might turn up as "on the board of" or "an advisor to" some environmental group that did something stupid or published something stupid.
I haven't in the past, no. I'm trying to be better about such things. For example, I don't think Barack Obama is a secret Muslim, and I don't believe Hillary Rodham Clinton drinks human blood.
(I do still think Edwards is a scum-sucking snake-belly lawyer, but I'm praying hard about that. Maybe Jesus will fix me.)
joe, I quoted from it. No, it does not track with his public comments on race; neither does it track with his writing style. Many people agree that it didn't sound at all like Paul wrote it.
Now, either Paul is a secret racist, along with being a crypto-Nazi, or somebody other than Paul wrote something for the Ron Paul Newsletter that's being attributed to him. I'm giving Paul the benefit of the doubt, and you're eager to torpedo him. Without much evidence, IMO.
The question, I guess, is whether there are other instances of racist writings, at other times, that were published under his name or by him.
Well, I don't think any have come to light, and now that I've watched the video, it seems to me that Kircheck hedged quite a bit. He didn't come off as exactly trustworthy himself.
I suppose we'll see what he's got tomorrow. Until then, I don't see much of a point in forming a conclusion.
Strange that all this talk about racism is being directed at Dr. Paul, the ONLY candidate that true honesty and integrity.
Yet nobody ever seems to mention that Barack Obama belongs to a Blacks Only church. http://www.tucc.org/about.htm
Thin the herd. Anyone who chooses to believe Ron Paul is a racist, isn't welcome in this r3volution. This is a revolution of the minds. Just sit back, take a soma, and play some Wii. You don't want to waste your time questioning reality. It might hurt.
Ron Paul '08
Justin Sobodash, I'm not even American, so the point about personal issues is mute. I think that advocating secessionism is just consequential libertarianism.
To all those who keep asking why this is considered a new story: Since 1996 Ron Paul has refused to release his newsletters to the public, so all we've had is a few cherry picked comments to draw our conclusions from. (source: http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol16/issue9/pols.paul.html)
Dondero blames Lew Rockwell for the newsletters:
http://ronpaulsurvivalreport.blogspot.com/2007/12/faq-ron-paul-and-his-racist-newsletter.html
As for his blame shifting, here's what Cynthia McKinny said after her campaign was accused of antisemitism:
"The people who made those remarks were not associated with my campaign in any formal way, and I want to make clear from this hour that any informal ties between me and my campaign and anyone holding or espousing such views are cut and renounced. The fact that the remarks occurred after some verbal and other provocation initiated either by members of the press or so-called security people attached to members of the press is no excuse for the content of the remarks themselves.
Denunciations of entire religious or racial groups, statements ascribing this or that behavior or motivation to "the white man" or "the Jew" have never been part of my lexicon, my public or even my private dialogue. Anyone who makes blanket denunciations of Jews or "the Jew" is certainly not a supporter of mine, not a staff member, not a consultant to, nor is welcome to be a volunteer in my campaign. Such people are in fact not living in the real world."
Has Paul issued such a strongly worded statement? In 1996 he suggested that the reason white supremacists liked him was because he supported individual liberty (see Austin Chronicle article above). That's not a good way to distance yourself from them.
Cool, the RP ad just played on NBC here in Boston. Followed by Barak's.
This thread just needs ASCII goatse and it will be complete
Consider the source the New Republic are pro-war, pro bush.
Is it the poor syntax/grammar, or am I thinking of a different The New Republic?
Odd that the New Republic is so desperate to go after and attempt to discredit Paul. Sounds like a gross distortion or an engineered rumor to try to quell any further support for Paul. Paul supporters are primarily well educated geeks, yet Fox, media corporations and his rival candidates are trying to paint a different picture. This man has served 10 terms in congress!Why are they so afraid of what he has to say?
This is interesting:
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/7833.html
Ron Paul's support among racists comes from outright white supremacists. I have seen this personally. Go to any gun show in your area if you doubt me. In rural Arkansas, one shouldn't be too hard to find. That's where I've seen the support for Ron Paul blossom (I belong to an anarchist organization that tables these events, among others). And in this case, since I read back issues of the Ron Paul Freedom Report in the Spencer collection at KU (the nation's largest collection of both far-right and far-left pamphlets and periodicals), I know full well that this white supremacist support is based on the man himself and what he deeply believes.
Has anyone noticed the spike in donations that started at 6pm?
http://paulcash.slact.net/
Ron Paul is no racist. That is absurd. I could go on a website and call anyone i wanted a racist. I hope people wouldnt blindly follow.
Ron Paul is no Racist, and does more for personal liberties(isnt that what mlk was all about) than anyone in our time.
Dont be a fool and listen to this type of dirty rumors.
http://www.ronpaul2008.com
So this person's evidence that Paul is a white supremacist comes from the fact that his supporters attend gun shows - that the commenter also attends themselves!
And his writings are in the Spencer collection at KU - no doubt just like the writings of anarchists, like the commenter!
This thread just needs ASCII goatse and it will be complete
Don't tempt me. I have no shame.
phdoom
Shouldn't we read the newsleters first and then decide whether he's a racist?
Please, the people aren't buying it anymore. It's pathetic actually. Look, this game has been tried already and they lost which caused some retractions in MSM articles. Bring all the allegations out and let everyone see your real colors. After this one they will turn from yellow to black and blue.
Peace
Vote Ron Paul
fluffy,
No, he bases his opinion on having read back issues of the Ron Paul Freedom Newletter, which are housed at the Spencer Collection at KU. Can't you fucking read?
Edward -
Why can't I just read the Libertarian Party of America's 1988 platform and decide if he's a racist?
Wow,
Hey Edward, thanks for the link; it was one of the most hysterically funny things I read in a long time. There was enough straw being burned there to feed a pretty big sized herd of cattle through a Minnesota winter.
If Paul was racist he wouldn't even be trying to bring our troops home from Iraq, you know, lower income people, their lives not being as valuable as the Politicians kids..... of course.......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiFsxp5qOpM
C'mon Fluffy, if racist stuff appeared in the Ron Paul Freedom Newsletter repeatedly over a long period of time, it counts as strong evidence that he's a racist. But we have to read the stuff ourselves before we draw such a conclusion, right? I'll read the excerpts tomorrow. How about you?
tarran
The proof will be in the reading.
Uh, all this hubbub aside, did anybody but me read the linked HD Thoreau article? And marvel at how many names that man took, and how many asses he kicked? My "Bob", that was some good writing...
Yes, I'm sure you would. But what if, just what if, one day you got sloppy? Would that prove that you're a vile despicable racist? Of course not! Ron Paul is NOT a racist, he's just a lousy newsletter editor. Sheesh.
"I'm taking Dr. Paul's explanation that he's allowed things to be published under his name at face value."
I think it's mindbogging naive for you to think that, and don't believe for a nanosecond that you would extend that rather extraordinary benefit of the doubt to a politician you didn't support.
joe,
Mitt Romney just caught some flack about not knowing what was in his leaflets or something. I don't have the particulars because I figured it's no big deal -- as a CEO type, it would be perfectly in character for him to delegate such a task. Anyway, there's an example where you might have to suspend disbelief for 2 nanoseconds.
Fine, Edward.
We'll read the newsletters.
But I'm telling you right now: I will completely reject as evidence anything Kirchik offers that's "in code". I will also completely reject out of hand any speaking engagements Paul accepted as evidence of anything. I will also reject any daisy chains of personal associations.
But we'll read the newsletters and see what we've got.
By the way, your "witness" who has "read the Ron Paul Freedom Report" also in that same post accuses white anti-war liberals of being default white supremacists, and says that anti-war activists who aren't also anti-capitalist are also white supremacists. He then goes on to say that all Republican party candidates for any office and most Democrat party candidates are also white supremacists. That's what the world looks like when you are an anarchist douchebag, Edward.
By the way, looking back over that thread I also feel the need to specify that any evidence linking Paul to "militia" groups or "antigovernment extremist" groups will also be rejected out of hand by me as evidence that Paul is a white supremacist. There's a nice little dance going on in that comment thread equating these groups as essentially identical, and no adequate basis is offered for such an equation. Personally I think the experience of the Bush years shows that [at least some of] the militia guys were right all along.
Bring all the allegations out and let everyone see your real colors.
One problem here - they're bringing out these allegations the day before the New Hampshire primary, which is crucial to Paul's campaign. By the time he gets the opportunity to respond, the primary will have come and gone.
Does anyone else find the timing of this suspicious?
A local paper pulled the same stunt on my old man when he was running for a local office. Of course, they retracted what they'd printed - after the election.
Right, Fluffy, we'll wait for the excerpts from the actual newsletters. I'm not rushing to judgement.
As Dr. Paul has a very long record of truth and the New Republic does not and Dr. Paul speaks up for us and the New Republic does not, and this is an an old story I would Have to take Dr. Pauls word on it and disbelieve the New Republic. Shame on you New Republic.
So, what's wrong with attending secessionist rallies? Does anyone in this country know anything at all about our history?
I went to school with "Jug Ears" Jamie. He was an annoying paranoid zionist asshole bootlicker. I can tell some very disturbing stories about his uncomfortably bizarre antics when drinking. Some things never change?except he may not be drinking.
I've watched the video.
To be honest, I find it confusing. It may well be that Ron Paul was basically an absentee landlord on this newsletter. However, it's curious that he never got even a whiff of it in all that time.
Here's my best guess (and yes, it could be totally wrong): Ron Paul does not have any personal animosity against black people as a general group. However, his views on issues such as welfare and anti-discrimination laws probably make him ill-disposed towards a certain subset of black Americans. If one is sufficiently ill-disposed towards a subset of a group, and if one is also influenced to some extent by various stereotypes, it becomes easy to keep certain company and tell oneself "Oh, he's not talking about all of them, just, you know, the ones who do [insert whatever here]."
This doesn't constitute holding a malicious view of an entire group, but it is nonetheless unacceptable.
That's my best guess of what's going on here. I find it hard to believe that Ron Paul is personally so bigoted. Not because of partisan sympathy, but because he doesn't seem like a sufficiently masterful politician and actor to keep any of his personal convictions so tightly under wraps on the campaign trail.
None of this should be construed as a defense of anything.
CanWest is owned by the Asper family. I'm sure they wouldn't be happy with Ron Paul's plan to end support for Israel. In fact, they don't allow critical comment of Israel of any short on their Canadian publications, and have a policy to dismiss any of their editors or writers that do. And no folks, I'm not making this stuff up, its their actual policy.
If these accusations are true, why hasn't Dondero made more political hay out of them? Here we have a guy who, the last time I checked (?), was vying for Ron Paul's congressional seat and attempting to discredit him at every turn, on every ridiculous blog and website he publishes. Wouldn't Dondero, a man intimately familiar with the *real* character and philosophy of Paul, be have been going to TOWN with allegations like these from DAY ONE of losing his job?
The claim that Lew Rockwell or an associate of his may have been the real writer of some or all of these comments strikes me as possible, since a Rockwell associate (unfortunately unnamed by my source) has accused King of homosexuality and pedophilia on at least once other occasion:
"'King bedded other men's wives, other wives' men, underaged girls, and young boys,' raged a columnist in the newsletter Rockwell ran before he started his website. '[M]y guess is that even holes in the ground had to watch out.'"
That quotation is taken from a justly infamous article (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID={47BA180E-2C05-4AF1-8396-50E0F709F3FE}), but I have no reason to doubt its accuracy. (I believe it was also quoted in Frum's earlier book Dead Right.)
Since The Dondero is being discussed here.
I did not make this site, although Eric thinks I did.
http://ericdondero.com
More information
on my blog
Hm, if that's the case then this story won't have much legs, because the reporting might have to touch directly on the MLK question, which the MSM will want to avoid.
Are you folks ignorant of the true story here? It was the Reverend Ralph Abernathy who made these claims against MLK in the book he published before he died. The media pretty well ignored Abernathy who was MLK's right hand man. I believe the Paul newsletter was simply discussing what MLK's friend, fellow pastor and close associate said of him...that he was incredibly unfaithful to his wife, had numerous afrairs that even included relations with young men. Do a little research and you will find the book.
Here is a better link for that article.
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum031903.asp
I went to yale with jamie kirchick as well--seems like there are lots of us here--and I too can voch for what a whackjob the boy is. He always claimed to be libertarian, or conservative when it suited him--always the sensationalist, he revelled in being the "gay Republican"--but not a debate would go by when he wasn't accusing somebody or another of being an anti-Semite or racist or homophobe. HUGE neocon.
but not a debate would go by when he wasn't accusing somebody or another of being an anti-Semite or racist or homophobe. HUGE neocon.
You must be new here - he'd fit in fine on Hit & Run!
"but I have no reason to doubt its accuracy."
I meant that I have no reason to doubt that it was really written by a Rockwell associate, not that the content is true. I know King was a womanizer, but this is the only time I have heard him accused of same-sex, let alone pedophilic, sexual activity.
I don't know about gay pedophile, but as others have pointed out its been documented that MLK was a prositute beater, plagiarizer and Marxist.
http://vdare.com/misc/mlk_day04.htm
The myth continues due to our modern secular religion that says stamping out racism takes priority over the US constitution, private property rights, freedom of association and historical and biological facts.
Considering Paul's "heroes" are mises and rothbard, both jews and he named his son after ayn rand..
He also mentioned Walter Williams as possible VP and has a 30 year record where no one has ever heard him say anything remotely racist I find these claims ridiculous, and they keep on getting recycled... and have been refuted
Also Paul has been a constant critic of the war on drugs calling it a racist policy...
The difficulty is that Paul always notes that he rarely actually writes the material attributed to him. He has ghost writers who do it in his name -- evidence of that is seen when he can't answer specifics about the very things he allegeldy wrote. In the newsletter case the material was penned by Lew Rockwell who does hang out with racists, bigots and anti-semites and who is lovey-dovey with the League of the South and types like that. Rockwell brought that agenda into the libertarian movement. Now Paul still is responsible for letting his name be put on such material. You may remember Rockwell was infamous for his published piece praising the police for the Rodney King beating and lamenting the day when cops didn't beat more suspects in the paddy wagon before they went to trial. He thought that was a good thing. Poor Mises, what sins are commited in your name.
> I don't know about gay pedophile, but as others have
> pointed out its been documented that MLK was a
> prositute beater, plagiarizer and Marxist.
>
> http://vdare.com/misc/mlk_day04.htm
Well, in defense of King, although he may have had serious faults, he also had serious accomplishments. We're all flawed and we all have nobility, but some people can still be very flawed and still have incredible greatness.
Its all allegations, gossip and rumor mongering until I actually see the documents in question.
James Kirchick is a Giuliani supporter (Giuliani did lose to Paul in Iowa and might just finish behind Paul again in NH) and belongs to the Yale Friends of Israel Group. I am not anti-Semitic nor anti-Israel (I'm actually an observant Jew, want the U.S. to stop funding and arming all foreign nations including Israel and her "enemies", and wish peace for all individuals in that region) and I've noticed that most attacks on Ron Paul come from the same group. This is a group that stands to lose billions of dollars in aid if President Paul becomes president and his ideas are enacted. As an avowed "Friend of Israel," Kirchick is extremely threatened by Paul's non-interventionist foreign policy. The following is what Oliver Stiffins who went to Yale with Kirchick had to say about Kirchick's character:
"He was an annoying paranoid zionist asshole bootlicker. I can tell some very disturbing stories about his uncomfortably bizarre antics when drinking. Some things never change?except he may not be drinking."
I have a friend(we're both administrators of a Gays & Lesbians for Ron Paul Facebook group) who personally knows Kirchick and says he is a lying schmuck.
Why is everyone in such a tizzy? You act like people actually watch the Tucker Carlson show...
Things aren't always what they seem.
Jamie Kirchich is a Rudy Giuliani supporter, who is quite possibly just a little pissed off that Ron Paul beat Giuliani in Iowa, and is doing badly in the primary elections and that Giuliani's campaign is in the toilet at the moment.
I find this very odd because Rudy Giuliani's campaign official just made statements about how ALL Muslims are bad and should be chased back into their caves. That is what I call an ethnocentric hate-filled statement.
I do know that Ron Paul is not a warmonger and the Giuliani is very preemptive war. He basically wants to exterminate the entire Middle East. This seems to be a despiration ploy by the MSM to discredit Ron Paul out of fear of Paul doing well in New Hampshire, and Rudy getting left behind in the dust.
Of course I care if Ron Paul is a racist.
Like many others, I've spent the last year supporting this campaign, putting in many hours locally and nationally offering free professional services which amount to far more than the dollars I can legally donate, and I've done that as well. If I saw proof that Ron Paul himself made racist statements and I did not hear a satisfactory explanation directly from him, my support would end.
Having said that, and given the amount of research I've done on him, the legislation he's written, the hundreds of speeches, press releases, articles, video clips, blogs, etc., etc... that proof would have to be solid. I mean rock solid.
Given the sources that are out there, the motivations they have for ending his candidacy, and the fact that if they had something solid this campaign would have ended long ago, I won't hold my breath. Instead, I will continue harder than ever to fight.
"You may remember Rockwell was infamous for his published piece praising the police for the Rodney King beating and lamenting the day when cops didn't beat more suspects in the paddy wagon before they went to trial."
These days Rockwell seems to hate policemen with a white-hot fury. I wonder if he regards his views as having changed or if he somehow regards these views as compatible.
"Why is everyone in such a tizzy? You act like people actually watch the Tucker Carlson show..."
Good point. This article may well affect Paul's long-term reputation, but I doubt if it will have much effect on tomorrow's (or rather today's) election results.
I am also a little startled to learn that Paul named one of his sons Rand.
Paul named his dog Liberty! But he actually named his son Randy. Randy changed it to Rand because his father taught him to read and understand and respect the principles of Liberty...including Ayn Rand.
Via Berin M. Szoka ---
Monday, January 7, 2008
Jamie Kirchick: "I don't think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I'm just cynical"
Jamie Kirchick announced with a smirk on his face the size of Manhattan--that his hit piece accusing Ron Paul of racism, homophobia and anti-semitism would be appearing online the next day--which, by astonishing coincidence happens to be the very day of the New Hampshire primary.
I first met Jamie at a holiday party held by the venerable libertarian magazine Reason just a few weeks ago. When Jamie saw my "Ron Paul 2008" button, he snickered and said, "Oh, Ron Paul... I've been reading up on him.
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 party tonight, though Patrick Sammon isn't particularly happy with me after I wrote this piece [attacking Log Cabin Republicans for not endorsing Giuliani as the "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
When I responded to ask him when his article might come out so I could read more, he answered: "Patience, my friend :-)"
Patience, indeed.
Let me not mince words. Jamie is a muckraker, a charlatan, and a hypocrite. For being so careless about concealing all these, he is a fool to boot. His bottom-feeding journalism dishonors The New Republic's history as a bastion of high-minded political discourse. His story was deliberately timed to inflict maximum political damage on a man of such uncommonly principled integrity that he is attacked for statements written decades ago by others in his name.
Grand Chalupa,
I don't know why you wanna make ad hominem attacks by bringing up MLK's personal failings, because they're clearly irrelevant to this thread. You might counter that whether MLK was in fact a gay pedophile matters in this case because such an accusation was made in the newsletter, but the thing is, just the fact that Ron Paul or his associates engaged in such name-calling suggests that it had a racist intent.
Anyway, we again should wait and look at the actual newsletters before making our judgment, but I gotta say, so far it doesn't look too good for Dr. Paul. At the very best (and I do mean very best) he will come out of this incident as a lousy manager--certainly not something we want in our commander-in-chief.
Here is a typically interminable case of libertarian infighting between some guy named Stephen Kinsella and some guy named Tom Palmer, in which Rockwell's remarks on the King beating are extensively quoted:
http://ancapistan.typepad.com/the_palmer_periscope/2005/02/palmer_on_rodne.html
Here is an article by Rockwell in which he does (in passing) distinguish the King case those cases of police brutality that he decries:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/cincinnati-beating.html
MLK, gay pedophile?
Hahahahahaha!
THEY ARE STARTING TO SWEAT! KEEP IT UP GOOD PEOPLE!
RON PAUL IN 08, UNSTOPPABLE BABY!
Well, in defense of King, although he may have had serious faults, he also had serious accomplishments. We're all flawed and we all have nobility, but some people can still be very flawed and still have incredible greatness.
All of King's "accomplishments" are myths. All the "civil rights" movement did was foster government dependency among blacks, a bitterness about their own failings and make them lose any sense of personal responsibility. I don't feel like providing the links for you, but do your own research on black crime rates and out of wedlock births before and after the 1960s. Not to mention whites who've been victims of black crime, discriminated against by affirmative action and have been subsidizing blacks' breeding
And you may consider beating prostitutes and believing in the most murderous ideology in the history of man as minor faults, but to me they're more than enough to qualify a man as bottom of the barrel scum.
I am sure that some nobody internet pundit James Kirchick found all this evidence exposing 20 years of racism and Tim Russert found only that Dr. Paul inserted some earmarks and didn't think we HAD to fight the Civil War
Nothing surprises me anymore.
Does anybody except me care whether or not this is true?
Too long of a thread to see if this was said, but I couldn't care less whether or not MLK was actually a gay pedophile.
Here, a comment from Red State on this issue:
http://www.crosstabs.org/blogs/rudy08/2008/jan/08/ron_paul_has_called_mlk_a_gay_paedophile
This will be big, I bet. I think we are witnessing the end of the Ron Paul campaign here, boys. Woo-hoo!
i'd rather he didn't go down this way, though by gideon1789
i'd prefer that voters rejected his positions on the merits
Not me
by bamapachyderm
The people he represents (neo-Nazis, white supremacists, troofers, etc.) and the hate he spews should be rejected first. That kind does not deserve a seat at the table, and the sooner that filth is made taboo, the better.
His hateful, nutty theories (NWO/CFR/Trilateral Commission nonsense, abolish the Fed--an old favorite anti-Semitic goal--etc.) all go hand in hand with his alliances with the scum of the earth. You can almost not have one without the other.
Ron Paul is an utter disgrace to America, and an even worse disgrace to the GOP. I'm appalled that he even gets to run as a Republican. I don't want his type identifying as "Republicans"--let the crazies run with the irrelevant Crazy Parties.
Don't you think it's a bit curious that virtually all of the most virulent hate groups are on board with the Paultards?
I've done the research. It's not made-up nonsense; he has long-established ties to the filthiest people on the far, far, extreme "right" (it makes me sick saying they're on "the right").
Rudy has plenty to answer for (hey, who doesn't?), but it's not even in the same universe as Ron Paul's transgressions pathology.
(from a Fred supporter)
Not for nothing, but I could give a hoot how anyone feels on these sort of issues. The point is to NEVER write anything down that can be held against you. The Clintons are pros at that.
BIG BROTHER IS ALWAYS WATCHING
It is government interference in our personal lives that leads to racism anyway. I've never met a racist person who did not have a legitimate experiential reason for having their view.
Remember, the Arabs DO hate us because we interfere in their countries, invading their autonomy.
Our government does the exact same thing here in America, only it is through affirmative action and other unfair, unconstitutional laws.
Forced integration leads to clashing cultures and war. It is an invasion of individual autonomy.
Actually, I think it is a load of crap that we claim to embrace free speech, yet if a white person says anything negative against a non-white it is considered "hate speech."
Personally, I am against all laws (except traffic etc). Laws negative our Rights.
The Amish are the only humans I truly respect.
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
-Voltaire
BTW, I see that the shit eaters at vnnforum.com have linked this, and are discussing this issue. I only found that site thanks to Nolan Charts, and now need multiple showers.
Gee, maybe TNR is rushing this. Couldn't they work on it a few more hours and then text-blast it to voters 5 minutes before polls open? Or heck, enlist the Air Force to drop leaflets *on* polling places.
The video won't play for me, but forgive me if I don't see Tucker Carlson's reported failure to mount an effective defense of Paul as particularly significant.
I think the timing is likely VERY significant and indicative of a weakly grounded smear. Smears work best when they can influence events before the truth can be sorted out. If this is a valid, well-documented criticism of Paul, why not release it weeks ago when it could have prevented him from trouncing a top-tier non-racist in the first caucus? If this hurts Paul, on the other hand, and is later debunked, just think how satisfying a post-NH retraction won't be.
p.s. Wow, speaking of TNR, some list of luminaries here (scroll down).
As Berin Szorka has shown,this is just a redux of the Glass affair at the New Republic. Those Peretzian capitalists will tellany lie to sell their Dewmit version of the "National Enquirer"
I was at the party and observed Kirchick saying and smirking about the same kinds of things.
New Republic exposed -- Glass fraud redux
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Monday, January 7, 2008
Jamie Kirchick: "I don't think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I'm just cynical"
Jamie Kirchick, assistant editor of The New Republic, appeared tonight on Tucker Carlson's show to announce--with a smirk on his face the size of Manhattan--that his hit piece accusing Ron Paul of racism, homophobia and anti-semitism would be appearing online the next day--which, by astonishing coincidence happens to be the very day of the New Hampshire primary.
I first met Jamie at a holiday party held by the venerable libertarian magazine Reason just a few weeks ago. When Jamie saw my "Ron Paul 2008" button, he snickered and said, "Oh, Ron Paul... I've been reading up on him. Have you read the stuff that guy's written? Nasty stuff! Racist, anti-semitic, homophobic!"
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 party tonight, though Patrick Sammon isn't particularly happy with me after I wrote this piece [attacking Log Cabin Republicans for not endorsing Giuliani as the "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
When I responded to ask him when his article might come out so I could read more, he answered: "Patience, my friend :-)"
Patience, indeed.
Let me not mince words. Jamie is a muckraker, a charlatan, and a hypocrite. For being so careless about concealing all these, he is a fool to boot. His bottom-feeding journalism dishonors The New Republic's history as a bastion of high-minded political discourse. His story was deliberately timed to inflict maximum political damage on a man of such uncommonly principled integrity that he is attacked for statements written decades ago by others in his name.
The richest irony is that the Ron Paul grassroots campaign in Washington, DC--Jamie's hometown--has found its earliest and strongest supporters in DC's gay community. It would not surprise me if our slate of delegate and alternate delegate candidates for Ron Paul is the gayest slate in DC (measured by number of gay individuals--not gayness of individuals), very probably the gayest slate in DC ever, and probably one of the gayest slates for a major party Presidential candidate of any state ever.
Posted by Berin M. Szoka at 8:25 PM
Labels: Smear tactics
Ron Paul must be getting 50% GOP votes in NH. Media is getting desperate. Tucker Carlson is a shill. First attempt to discredit RP came in Nevada (brothel owner, hot chicks, etc.) Then this. RP campaign must distance themself from this little turd. Reason can produce "hit and run" piece, but can not hide.
Go Ron Paul!!!
For some reason LRC is not putting anything on its blog. Are they scrambling re how to respond?>/b>
I read Lew Rockwell's site every day and I agree it's curious why no one there has mentioned anything about it yet. It's also rather curious why Rockwell doesn't publicly defend himself against the charges that he himself wrote some of those controversial articles. he claims to be a friend and supporter of Ron Paul. If so, why won't he publicly come out to once and for all put these rumors and charges to rest? Well, Lew???? The future of Ron Paul's campaign is at stake now. Will you be man enough to do the right thing?
That said, Jamie Kirchick is a muckracking propagandist of the worst order.
Ron takes third place in early voting in Hart's Location
On the Republican side, McCain received 6 votes, Mike Huckabee 5, Ron Paul 4 and Mitt Romney 1.
Didn't Tucker endorse Paul and write this amazingly good article in TNR? I can't believe he did not know about this ahead of time! He looked like an idiot yesterday.
Tucker let himself be used by an obvious muckracker on the eve of polling. Disappointing.
*ugh* Bad HTML in my previous post. My bad.
Another thing I would like to point out: Ron Paul has himself surrounded by a bunch of paleolibertarians of questionable honor. I think they latched onto Ron because:
1. He is a man who has garnered some level of influence by being a congressman. They are akin to hangers on who flock to anyone who has even a modicum of celebrity status.
2. The man is trusting. It's easy to hitch your wagon to someone that trusting. State's evidence # 1`: Eric Rittberg-Dondero.
Let's face it: Eric Rittberg-Dondero would be NOTHING today if it weren't for his parasitic association with Ron Paul. He sullied Ron's name then and he continues to do so simply for the glory and attention.
I just re-read Kirchick's comments...he didn't say this stuff spanned "20 years", he said "two decades". That could plausibly refer to 1988-1996, since that includes years from the 80s and from th 90s. So, perhaps he didn't flat-out contradict himself later when he said it happened while Dr Paul was out of Congress, though it's still pretty misleading in my book to call a span of 8 years "two decades".
Another thing I would like to point out: Ron Paul has himself surrounded by a bunch of paleolibertarians of questionable honor.
Such as?
Open Letter to African Americans
Ali,
Tucker knew about the previous instances of racist writings in the Ron Paul Survival Report, and that writer's attacks on Barbra Jordan. Also, he can't refuse to let someone on his show just because they might hurt Ron Paul. The guy's a journalist, he's supposed to retain some degree of objectivity.
Nobody knows what Kirchick claims to have found, because they haven't published it yet. That's what really gets me about this; TNR is making a pretty momentous accusation against Dr Paul without releasing evidence so he can respond.
crimethink- I know. You're right regarding objectivity, but I no longer have any faith in journalists (and not only because of this incident).
As of now, this smear is only being picked up by some paper in the Netherlands.
One benefit to the media ignoring you? They ignore the good with the bad...
Why would anyone think Ron Paul is a homophobe? Just because he thinks the idea of gay marriage is comical, wants to ban gay marriage, and has said on national television that he thinks "Don't ask, don't tell" which federally discriminates homosexuals is a fine policy?
What would ever give anyone the idea Ron Paul is a homophobe?
Taktix,
It's also likely that reputable papers don't want to run an attention-grabbing story without any evidence beyond the word of Kirchick, and risk having egg all over their faces if what he comes up with turns out to be nothing new.
Maybe they know something about Kirchick's "evidence" that we don't...
Ron Paul has been newly elected to Congress three times. and has served ten terms. He has run for President once before. He is a well known OB/GYN in Texas. I find it hard to believe that if these allegations were true, they would not have become fodder for the press long before now.
By the way, Rudy Giuliani used to hold swingers parties in Gracie mansion, Mike Huckaby and Bill Clinton are actually first cousins (family conspiracy to rule the world), and Fred Thompson's biggest supporter is Barbra Stresiand.
This was on RonPaulForums.com
Jamie Kirchick: "I don't think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I'm just cynical"
Jamie Kirchick, assistant editor of The New Republic, appeared tonight on Tucker Carlson's show to announce--with a smirk on his face the size of Manhattan--that his hit piece accusing Ron Paul of racism, homophobia and anti-semitism would be appearing online the next day--which, by astonishing coincidence happens to be the very day of the New Hampshire primary.
I first met Jamie at a holiday party held by the venerable libertarian magazine Reason just a few weeks ago. When Jamie saw my "Ron Paul 2008" button, he snickered and said, "Oh, Ron Paul... I've been reading up on him. Have you read the stuff that guy's written? Nasty stuff! Racist, anti-semitic, homophobic!"
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 party tonight, though Patrick Sammon isn't particularly happy with me after I wrote this piece [attacking Log Cabin Republicans for not endorsing Giuliani as the "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
When I responded to ask him when his article might come out so I could read more, he answered: "Patience, my friend :-)"
Patience, indeed.
Let me not mince words. Jamie is a muckraker, a charlatan, and a hypocrite. For being so careless about concealing all these, he is a fool to boot. His bottom-feeding journalism dishonors The New Republic's history as a bastion of high-minded political discourse. His story was deliberately timed to inflict maximum political damage on a man of such uncommonly principled integrity that he is attacked for statements written decades ago by others in his name.
The richest irony is that the Ron Paul grassroots campaign in Washington, DC--Jamie's hometown--has found its earliest and strongest supporters in DC's gay community. It would not surprise me if our slate of delegate and alternate delegate candidates for Ron Paul is the gayest slate in DC (measured by number of gay individuals--not gayness of individuals), very probably the gayest slate in DC ever, and probably one of the gayest slates for a major party Presidential candidate of any state ever.
POSTED BY BERIN M. SZOKA AT 11:25 PM
Of course, the funny thing is, this story might actually help him with South Carolina Republicans next week...
sixstring,
I can buy "some leaflets," especially since Romney washed his hands of them within the week.
This is about a decade or more worth of newsletters.
More quality journalism from The New Republic?
Credibility is so hard to regain one lost.
A lot of people raise good points about Paul using rhetoric and taking stances which are not only non-racist, but fly in the face of and would actually be offensive to actual racists. Not to mention, the style of writing in the racist columns that have come out is clearly incompatible with how Paul speaks and writes.
Definitely leaning towards the "absentee landlord" position. Also, thoreau's take seems about right: if you're a little bit of a "racial traditionalist," and you hold far-right positions on issues like gun rights or seccession, it's possible to find yourself in and among some genuinely revolting people and misunderstand where they're coming from. Particularly if you are the Congressman and they're trying to make you happy so they can ride your coattails, and if you are maybe a bit too trusting and unconcerned with details.
Move Boyle, J. from the "duct tape and fiberglass" list to the "watchful eye" list.
Oh, sorry, I thought I was typing in the email box to my cell leader. Carry on.
A couple things in the video leap out at me.
1 - He specifically states that Ron was able to get away with this stuff from when he wasn't in congress, which was late 80s early 90s, then simultaneously claims he's been allowing/writing racist rhetoric since the 70s. Nice dodge of the Tucker's question.
2 - The speaking in code thing is just ... odd.
He gives no examples of the "code" just tried to make a baseless accusation.
3 - The insinuation that Thomas DiLorenzo is racist. Has he even sat down and read "The Real Lincoln"? Probably not.
I'm going out on a limb and saying this guy really has nothing and just tried to see if he could cause a ruckus. You'll notice through a quick google search that pretty much every single major news outlet aside from the tucker interview has pretty much ignored this guy, even though this is probably something that would be great feeding material. This is how low this guy's credibility is.
Is it true that for over 20 years Ron Paul's newsletter published such garbage? If so, how can it be explained as the work of a ghost writer? Why didn't Ron Paul know such a creep worked for him? Why didn't he fire the guy after the first publication? Why didn't he look at a newsletter bearing his name before it was released?
I've been rooting for Ron Paul, but I am astonished at how some of his supporters are using the flimsiest grounds for dismissing this story. And since when are the age of a charge and the number of times it has been raised relevant?
If the magazine author is not lying (seems unlikely), how can the movement recover from this?
One point I want to add to this. By the early 1960's libertarianism was dead. I'll bet there were only a few hundred libertarian intellectuals left in the U.S. The primary argument weren't about whether the welfare state was a good idea but how big it should be. The monetary policy of all major central banks and nation states were based on Keynesianism, and the debates were focused on how much to 'prime the pump'.
When one has few allies, and one sees disaster in the looming in the future, it is understandable that one will be less choosy in which people one makes common cause with, much like the U.S. alliance with the Soviet Union against Germany
In this decade libertarianism has tens of thousands of intellectuals promoting it. It has a robust culture to the point that it is impossible to personally meet every influential libertarian thinker or supporter. I think we have turned a corner; modern communications technology ensures that libertarianism will probably never come again so close to extinction as in the dark decades before Ron Paul raised his standard.
Furthermore, despite what I see is a poor judgement about people, my hat is off to Ron Paul. It is clear to me that he would rather not be a politician. I think the guy would absolutely love to be back in Texas giving his grandchildren and great-grandchildren rides on his tractor and enjoying the life of a semiretired and respected physician.
When Nixon went off the gold standard ti set the stage for a monetary disaster, Ron Paul correctly recognized the implications of this policy decision and jumped into politics, not because he wanted the glory of being a Congressman, but because he felt someone had to jump into the breach. Like the hobo made famous by Robert Heinlein who died trying to save a woman who had gotten her foot wedged in some railroad tracks, Ron Paul has poured irreplaceable years of his life into something that he clearly does not enjoy.
That is why I have a soft spot for the man. Yes, he has weaknesses. Yes, he makes colossal errors on occasion. But unlike many people who read the same economic textbooks as he does, unlike many people who correctly recognize the near certainty of economic ruin that accompanies currency debasement rather than sniping from the sidelines and sneering at society, he rolled up his sleeves and dove into the task of averting disaster despite his many shortcomings. For that, I will always respect him.
It is important to note that Ron Paul's movement is not about him. he is merely the figure head. Another can rise up and take his place. Far more important are the ideas he has been advocating of limited, prudent government. It is important that we not lose sight of that fact. Americans tend to go into fuhrer worship, and some of that has been happening with Ron Paul's fan base. It is the ideas that are important, not the man.
Do we know who the people were behind the Ron Paul newsletter? Is it possible he won't identify the writer because the writer is still allied with his campaign?
Sheldon,
The grounds I'm using for doubting this story are that the evidence has not yet been produced. What we have at the moment are accusations without evidence. Also, in that interview, Kirchick left himself plenty of wiggle room if it turns out that there's nothing new here.
still gotta say "joe | January 7, 2008, 8:45pm" wins the thread.
Why is it so mysterious what's in these newsletters? Are there not copies sitting around in some dusty corner of some library in Texas? I wish reason would dispatch a writer to Texas to find them, read them, and report on any nastiness contained therein. If the family dog has to be put down, it seems like reason should be one's to take Ol' Yeller out behind the shed.
Those newsletter excerpts mirror the tone and content of the non-Rothbard writing in the Rothbard-Rockwell Report.
Dondero-Rittberg's charge that Rockwell wrote them is plausible, although someone else close by could have written it or at least collaborated.
Ron should surely apologize for not checking what was going out in his own newsletter, but the indulgent paleocon bigot who wrote it needs to do the real apologizing for publishing his own pet prejudices in the good doctor's name.
Back in 1996 when Ron ran for congress again against a party switcher, the GOP establishment brought these same charges up. I lived in Ron's congressional district back then. So the New Republic a magazine that seems to make stuff up on the fly brings this stuff up again right before the vote in New Hampshire. Okay. Anything else. Its no secret beltway libertarians hate Ron Paul. The CATO Institute won't even mention his name. They know what side their bread is buttered on. CATO are the NeoCons of libertarians.
That said, the newsletter thing is overblown. TNR accuser Kirchik is/was Marty Peretz's sidekick - talk about neocon central. Kirchik is prone to ad hominem attacks and Marty has referred to Arabs as primitive, crazed barbarians.
CATO are the NeoCons of libertarians.
Wow! Kids, can we say, "hyperbole"? From Cato's website:
"Cato's foreign policy vision is guided by the idea of national defense and a security strategy appropriate for a constitutional republic, not an empire. Cato's foreign policy scholars question the presumption that an interventionist foreign policy enhances the security of Americans in the post-Cold War world, and maintain instead that interventionism has consequences including, the formation of countervailing alliances, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and even terrorism. The use of U.S. military force should be limited to those occasions when the territorial integrity, national sovereignty, or liberty of the United States is at risk."
Sounds like something Dr. Paul himself might have said.
I've had two reservations about Paul for many years:
1) He's Dr. No - an uncompromising executive is a disaster for any movement he ostensibly supports.
2) He's tinged with some flavor of the kookdom he attracts.
I didn't think the second was the more probable disaster of a Paul campaign. I don't think a neutral look at this situtation permits one to ethically support the guy.
If Kirchick is actually as much of a p.o.s. as he appears, and the newsletters actually do say what he claims, it really doesn't matter what you think about his character and motivations.
I think, at this point, this is a pretty big "if."
CATO is big on Fred Thompson. The same Fred Thompson who still defends invading Iraq
Well, Jake, we do know for certain that the couple of newsletters from the mid-90s say some horrible racist shit. Maybe the Ron Paul Freedom Report took a decidely more racist turn in the mid-90s, but probably not.
I've been subscribing to Ron Paul's Newsletter since the mid 80s. I don't remember any racist stuff in them. Far too many people consider politically incorrect stuff to be racist. Many Reasonites do. I was called a racist on this forum last summer for not supporting the Bush McCain Kennedy amnesty bill.
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.african.american/msg/c8668bd3662b0fa5
CATO is big on Fred Thompson.
What are you basing that statement on? The first hit in Google for Cato articles on Fred Thompson starts with these words: "Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson may have set a modern record for the amount of sloppy thinking on defense policy in a single speech."
On further review, there will never be a Gasset Gazette. Too damn much shit can go wrong. At best, there will be a Dead Spanish Philosophers Quarterly published by O and Y, Inc., with Page 3 dedicated to a topless girl and Page 4 to a 10,000 word disclaimer saying that the views expressed in the Gazette do not reflect teh views of O and Y, Inc, any subsidiary companies, its officer and directors or any family pets.
FREDalism
Cato Institute VP Sneers At Ron Paul: He's Not Our 'Kind of Person'!
CATO Institute fails to mention Ron Paul During Discussion on Barry Goldwater
Bottom line. CATO is funded by some very big NeoCons. They're Belway hacks.
You are such a liar. Didn't you try this months ago? Ron Paul has praised Martin Luther King on MANY occasions and used him to inspire his supporters. If this lie is your best shot at discrediting him, you KNOW he has consistent, principled integrity.
Assuming Ron Paul didn't actually write the racist diatribes published in his political newsletter - are we suppose to believe he also never read his own newsletter?
Not very likely.
Sheldon- I thought you were quicker on the uptake than that. The smear is referring to one single issue of a ghostwritten newsletter. It has been explained and refuted innumerable times. Yet the media keeps bringing it back up over and over like a bad burrito.
As I'm sure you mother told you, take everything the media tells you with a fifty pound bag of rock salt.
Ron Paul is close to the paleo-libertarians.
The paleo-libertarians were more or less founded as a strategic effort to rebuild the old right through an alliance with paleo-conservatives. There are racist and anti-semetic paleolibertarians.
Paul's "personal" newsletter was part of that broad strategy.
Which paleo-libertarian was tasked with editing Paul's personal newsletter? Which paleo-libertarians and paleo-conservatives wrote things for it?
I think it is entirely credible that Paul didn't bother to read it. I think one of the reasons he isn't very forthcoming about the entire issue is that there were all of these readers thinking they were getting the straight dope from Ron Paul, when really they were reading a publication edited by some other paleo-libertarian and written perhaps by various paleo-libertarian and paleo-conservative nobodies.
So, I found an article on the Cato website where the writer said bad things about Fred Thompson, and you found one where the write said good things. That shows that Cato allows different writers to express different points of view on their website.
I'm perfectly willing to accept your assertion that Cato doesn't want to be associated with Ron Paul. Which is, of course, a separate matter than whether Cato backs Fred Thompson. After I found out about Ron Paul's views on immigration and birth right citizenship, I can't lend my support to him, either.
Here's the smear, but it looks like someone's launched a denia-of-service attack preventing me from seeing hte linked PDF:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/01/08/ron-paul-on-andy-rooney.aspx
Oh, yeah, it's also on Drudge.
The Nizkor Project mainly collects documentation on Holocaust deniers, but they have what appears to be the complete text or at least a long passage of an issue of the Ron Paul Political Report. Some excerpts:
The Los Angeles and related riots mark a new era in American cultural,
political, and economic life. We now know that we are under assault from thugs and revolutionaries who hate Euro-American civilization
...
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. The "poor" lined up at the post office to get their handouts (since there were no deliveries)--and then complained about slow service. 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.
...
Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists -- and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.
...
Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics. The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you are entitled to something for nothing. That's what blacks got on the streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn't ask their Congressmen to arrange the transfer
This is sound proof that Paul has people shitting in their pants. I've worked in the national news media for over 5 1/2 years. Trust me, Paul is becoming extremely popular with Americans
No reason to pretend it is some smear.
The "ghost writer" excuse is just that or he would have been consistent, eh?
http://alternatereality456.blogspot.com/2007/11/ron-pauls-original-defense-to-his.html
Here's an excerpt from Kirchick's piece. Boy, has David Duke returned the favor.
Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul's newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. ("What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!" one newsletter complained in 1990. "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.") In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the "X-Rated Martin Luther King" as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours," "seduced underage girls and boys," and "made a pass at" fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as "a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."
While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. In a passage titled "The Duke's Victory," a newsletter celebrated Duke's 44 percent showing in the 1990 Louisiana Republican Senate primary. "Duke lost the election," it said, "but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment." In 1991, a newsletter asked, "Is David Duke's new prominence, despite his losing the gubernatorial election, good for anti-big government forces?" The conclusion was that "our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom." Duke is now returning the favor, telling me that, while he will not formally endorse any candidate, he has made information about Ron Paul available on his website.
Personally I tune out any and all mudslinging, regardless of the candidate. What matters to me is the message and the candidate's record in backing up that message. Right now only Ron Paul has shown that he not only talks the talk, but walks the walk.
Message to all candidates... "Tell me why to vote for you. Don't tell why to vote against someone else"
And according to this very intelligent writer, Dr. Paul speaks in a special "code" language that only white supremacists really understand...what? Freedom=slavery, war=peace. Welcome to the new reality, thanks Orwell.
If the content of his own newsletter is somehow mudslinging against him - what kind of a man is he?
Too bad the Paultards seem so cultish - they might have broken double digits long ago if they were honest enough to consider their candidates negatives - or any negatives.
Ron Paul is not a savior, he does not walk on water, he is just another lying politician. That is until he can come clean on his racist background:
"What is interesting is Paul's idea that the identity of the person who did write those lines is "of no importance." Paul never deals in disavowals or renunciations or distancings, as other politicians do. In his office one afternoon in June, I asked about his connections to the John Birch Society. "Oh, my goodness, the John Birch Society!" he said in mock horror. "Is that bad? I have a lot of friends in the John Birch Society. They're generally well educated, and they understand the Constitution. I don't know how many positions they would have that I don't agree with. Because they're real strict constitutionalists, they don't like the war, they're hard-money people. . . . "
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/magazine/22Paul-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=4&oref=slogin
Sure, the Birchers aren't racist in the least, eh?
One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" were better alternatives.
I have been to NYC more than once. Dirtburg is a perfectly fair name for it.
I can't believe that the intelligent staff Of Reason magazine are going to continue touting Ron Paul now. Rational libertarianism shouldn't be tainted with this garbage.
I can't believe that the intelligent staff Of Reason magazine are going to continue touting Ron Paul now. Rational libertarianism shouldn't be tainted with this garbage.
I've been getting the impression reason's staff has been having trouble resisting the urge to jump on the bandwagon, but, to their credit, have kept one foot on solid objective journalist ground. The tone of this very post is a little sarcastic about Kirchick, but, on the other hand, Welch brought up the accusations rather than suppressing them.
The stuff I just read on the Drudge website is pretty damning. Unless he just made up those newsletter excerpts, its going to be a big blow against the already troubled public image of libertarianism.
This is ludicrous.
The racial things Kirchick cites all occur between 1990 and 1994 -- precisely the period that the previously known slurs were published in. There's little new here. "Over a span of two decades" my ass.
In other words, if you already believed Dr Paul's explanation that he didn't approve these things, there's little here to disabuse you of that notion. If you didn't already believe his explanation, than you already think he's a racist.
From Kirchick's article:
The people surrounding the von Mises Institute--including Paul--may describe themselves as libertarians, but they are nothing like the urbane libertarians who staff the Cato Institute or the libertines at Reason magazine.
Take that, you people saying Reason is shilling for Paul. Even Kirchick thinks otherwise.
I also wasn't aware that Reason was staffed mainly by "libertines".
It doesn't matter whether it was over a span of two decades. Four to five years is a long time for Ron Paul to claim to be unaware of the content of newsletters with his name on them.
If you didn't think that already, why do you think it now? We already knew that there was hideous racist garbage being published under Ron Paul's name in the early 90s. Again, if you believed his explanation before, why do you not believe it now, because of a few more examples from the same time period?
I've now read James Kirchick's piece. The gist of the article is already known to persons who have been following the Paul campaign, as excerpts of some of the most asinine and repugnant material in the newsletters has already been widely published.
As a former subscriber to the newsletter in question - admittedly, not during the entirety of its existence - I can write without fear of contradiction that it was a typical hard-money, right-wing newsletter, with constant predictions of the end of the world as we know it, and the like. It was comparable to many newsletters being published on the right during its day - such as Howard J. Ruff's "The Ruff Times" and Gary "Y2K" North's "Remnant Review." Most of these newsletters were marketed to folks on the fringe who believed in stockpiling food and investing in gold in the face of the inevitable collapse of the United States economy. I subscribed because I liked Paul and appreciated his economic and political views; I found the newsletter itself pretty boring and silly.
I don't recall reading any of the racist stuff at all. That's not to say that it didn't exist, as some obviously did, but it certainly wasn't the main material presented in the newsletter. In addition - and I will be happily corrected if my recollection is faulty - I thought that, back when this issue was raised in 1996 in Paul's congressional campaign, blogger Lew Rockwell (Paul's former chief of staff) admitted that he was the ghostwriter of the newsletter. Rockwell was also at the helm of another newsletter, one featuring his name, along with that of libertarian gadfly Murray Rothbard - who just happened to be Jewish. (So much for the anti-Semitism argument).
Those who are jumping on this story - such as the expected glee over at Red State - might not want the "blowback" which is going to accompany it. Red State is owned by Eagle Publishing, which also owns the Conservative Book Club, "Human Events," and Regnery Publishing. To condemn Paul, Kirchick cites the association of Thomas E. Woods, Jr., with the Mises Institute:
"Thomas E. Woods Jr., a member of the institute's senior faculty, is a founder of the League of the South, a secessionist group, and the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, a pro-Confederate, revisionist tract published in 2004."
It just so happens that the book cited by Kirchick was published by Regnery, owner of Eagle and Red State, and endorsed by no less a neoconservative luminary than Sean Hannity:
"Written to counterbalance revisionist history texts, Woods' book has turned into a surprise best seller, soaring to #2 on the Amazon.com list after debuting on FOX's Hannity & Colmes last Monday and ranking #14 on The New York Times bestsellers list for non-fiction paperbacks the week of December 26."
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=6087
Will those attacking Paul now aim at Sean Hannity for promoting what Kirchick describes as a "pro-Confederate, revisionist tract"? How about the fact that a writer at Michael Medved's Townhall site also promotes the book to his readers?
http://michaelmedved.townhall.com/Columnists/Column.aspx?ContentGuid=d313d3c3-057d-4444-89c8-0ce4160bdcbb
It would seem that those conservatives who are so worried about Paul's alleged racism would do right to shine the bright light of their analysis on some of these folks who are more prominent and therefore likely more influential as well. Unless they really don't give a damn about racism (as I suspect), and it's really about discrediting someone who is a Republican who has the temerity to oppose the Iraq War.
Unlike most of my fellow Paul supporters, I don't think Paul has a chance to become the Republican nominee. Therefore, I'm not worried about that Kirchick's article will doom his prospects as a candidate. What saddens me, however, is that Paul will be accused of being something he's not, which is a racist, and that his name will forever be tarnished by that label. Has Paul done some stupid things in the past? Clearly. He allowed his name to be used on a newsletter and obviously trusted Lew Rockwell or whoever was writing it to not publish material that would sully his good name. He further compounded the problem when he didn't clearly explain the issue when it first arose in 1996, allowing it to remain a weapon with which he could be bludgeoned by those who dislike him. But making stupid mistakes doesn't make someone a racist. It may certainly disqualify him as a serious presidential candidate for lack of judgment, but it doesn't mean he's a secret Klansman or neo-Nazi.
The thing I find most ridiculous about Kirchick's "Tucker" interview is his claim that Paul "speaks in code" to the racists who support him. I like Paul and support him, but will be the first to admit that he is an ineffective and lousy communicator. I seriously doubt that he could pull off such a charade - the man gets tongue-tied trying to make the case for things in which he deeply believes. How could he possibly be so effective in concealing anti-Semitism and racism for so long? Kirchick is beyond straining credulity.
I agree with Kirchick on one point: Ron Paul won't be president.
You can see the photo copies in all their racist homophobic hateful original:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=74978161-f730-43a2-91c3-de262573a129
A person can run from their past, or pretend it never happened but the truth is always out there and will raise its head as needed.
Imagine IF Ron Paul had just said "I have grown and learned over the years and no longer hold the views published in my previous newsletters" - He might have been a contender.
To pretend this is a well planned smear from the early '90's is a bit silly.
If you didn't think that already, why do you think it now?
The only accusation I heard up to now was about one article in one newsletter. He claimed it was ghostwritten and he didn't know anything about it. I had to take him at his word on that, although I still thought it showed a lack of judgement on his part. It hinted at racism, but was far from conclusive proof.
But, like I have said before, I have been wary of Ron Paul ever since I heard about his views on immigration and birthright citizenship.
Gays & Lesbians for Ron Paul don't seem to think so....they spoke to Mr. Kirchick via email:
http://gays-for-ron.blogspot.com/2008/01/jamie-kirchick-i-dont-think-ron-paul-is.html
Here's Mr Paul's statement to Routers on MLK mud campaign.
"The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do
not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never
uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.
"In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that
we should only be concerned with the content of a person's character,
not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S.
House on April 20, 1999: 'I rise in great respect for the courage and
high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of
individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.'
"This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade.
It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the
day of the New Hampshire primary.
The "Paul is a racist" story was retracted by the New York Times (an unusual event in and of itself) as unsupported allegations by a white supremacist intent on damaging the Paul campaign. NYT investigated and found these claims to be false. Please issue your own retraction.
Really disappointed 'Reason' picked this up... This is sad slander. Really, really disappointed.
Jamie Kirchick (author of the New Republic story):
"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."
http://gays-for-ron.blogspot.com/2008/01/jamie-kirchick-i-dont-think-ron-paul-is.html
As a Ron Paul supporter from way back I feel the need to add some clarity to this and to defend a man I respect a great deal. First, Ron Paul is not a racist.
youtube.com/watch?v=cs-0AXWV8so (Still not allowed to post URL's, sorry you'll have to copy and paste.)
He speaks his mind. You will not find one shred of evidence to substantiate this claim in 10 terms of voting and speaking in the Senate. He and Congress woman McKinney have co-sponsored bills together, in some cases by themselves. Furthermore, I beg you to consider the source of this obvious hit piece. The New Republic, and more precisely Kirchick, who went to Yale, like Bush and Kerry is widely known throughout the media for his flagrant accusations against anyone who doesn't support the neocon perspective and the current administration. In fact these allegations were brought against Paul in a '96 campaign and were dropped because the person who actually wrote this stuff, a guy by the name of Dondero stepped forward and admitted that Ron Paul was not the author and that he (RP) never saw the copy before it went to print. In fact, the large majority of what the The New Republic intends to reference was published at a time when Paul was not active in Congress or writing for the publication. He was home with his family tending his farm.
As for the speaking at a pro-secessionist conference "in the south", here's a news flash. When politicians campaign they speak to a lot of groups. In this case Ron was running on the Libertarian ticket. Anyone who is familiar with their ideals knows that the Libertarian Party has long been an advocate of the states rights to succeed. His capacity at this meeting was just that, and nothing more. If he were running in New Hampshire, a state known for it's pro-secessionist movement, he likely would have addressed them in the same right.
All this stuff was brought to light over 10 years ago and Paul has admitted he his negligence in not overseeing the publication at all times. He even went so far as to accept responsibility on morale grounds, apologized for the content and vehemently denied and denounced any of the crap they intend to pin on him.
The part that frustrates me about all this nonsense is the way we as RP supporters are constantly having to defend our links and claims, yet one link and one claim from his detractors is taken as though it were the word of God. Nobody bothers to do any fact checking, and everyone automatically agrees that it must be the truth. It's so damn hypocritical. If your going make the assumption we're all moon-bats at least have the same skepticism across the board. For crying out loud Bush's policies aren't even a secret. He and his administration are killing thousands of US soldiers in Iraq, the large majority of which come from minority groups. Ron Paul is running on a platform of ending that bs. So before you all jump on the "RP's a racist bandwagon" I beg you do some research for yourselves.
It doesn't matter if Eric Dondero wrote those articles for the newsletter or not. Several people have said so on the internet, so a certain amount of people are going to believe it whether it's true or false. This is what we are dealing with, and that's just a fact of life.
These false media smears are a joke. You people need to find something else. Ron Paul has debunked these over and over and over. Did you know these comments were not even read or written by Ron Paul? They had to debunk these in the 90's and up to this day.
You will never find legit dirt on Ron Paul.
It's really interesting to see CNN post this on the day of the South Carolina debate. These stories flooded in on the day of the New Hampshire debate. Wolf Blitzer discussed this with Dr. Paul:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pLUmfZWIZsc
This "news story" makes it appear that this is breaking news although it has been already addressed. Although it attempts to make the appearance that it is balanced, it does Ron Paul more damage than good. For example, the title of the story should be "Ron Paul states that he did not write letters against blacks, gays." So please explain to me why CNN has re-hashed this story when Wolf Blitzer had already addressed this and Ron Paul has addressed this many times. I hope the motive was not to do damage to Ron Paul instead of report the news.
Ron Paul is the only one with the courage to mention how much crime is due to blacks:
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2004 report (released May 2006), blacks commit 54 percent of the homicides in America even though they constitute only 12 percent of the population.
An individual black male is seven times more likely to commit murder than an individual white male. It so happens that black felons commit 43 percent of aggravated assaults, 66 percent of armed robberies, 27 percent of rapes and 85 percent of interracial crimes of violence, mainly against whites (this last figure from a Justice Department report 2003).
However, it's not just in the United States. The greatest dicators in recent years have emerged in Africa. People like Idi Amin of Uganda, Hastings Kamuzu Banda in Malawi, Mobutu Sese Seko, in Zaire, self-anointed Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic, Mohammed Saidi Barre in Somalia, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe -- the list is endless.
statistics analyzed by the New York Times (July 4, 1999) dispel the poverty argument by establishing that impoverished white children whose parents earn less than $10,000 a year score higher on standardized SAT tests than black children whose parents earn more than $70,000 a year. Also, nearly 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock.
Could the horrific genocide in Rwanda have been done by whites or asians? I doubt it. I must be a racist.
tReason magazine is not betraying Ron Paul. It owes him no loyalty.
tReason magazine is betraying the libertarian cause by implying that passive racism or lack of managerial oversight is more important than fidelity to the Bill of Rights.
Basically you are saying that any politician pragmatic enough to get elected is not idealistic enough to be worthy of office.
Ron Paul--warts and all--is the most powerful voice for freedom we have and you guys are a bunch of gutless douchebags.
The timing of this "news" story is pretty dubious, with the New Hampshire primary on the 8th.
Most people who truly believe in freedom were obviously not paying attention to the political career of Ron Paul until recently, so it was news to some... but it was not new information.
Ron Paul represents the only chance for a peaceful revolution... which is going to come one way or another. It can't be stopped at this point.
Zeitgeist has been in the top spot at Google Video for a couple months now. Freedom to Fascism has been up there as well.
People, by and large, are very dissimilar from the typically effeminate D.C. nerd. They are upset and they have booze and guns and lots of them. Shit is going to get really hairy if Ron Paul doesn't win.
The thing is... it's guys like me that are going to have to do all of the killing.
Fuck you very much.
With many new announcement about the wizard of oz movies in the news, you might want to consider starting to obtain Wizard of Oz book series either as collectible or investment at RareOzBooks.com.
Disrespect Ron Paul? Not really possible. He will be respected if he wins or not. This guy is the real deal. If the people let him slip through, it's there loss.