Posted on 01/11/2008 6:59:44 AM PST by jdm
Reason Magazine has long associated themselves with the Ron Paul campaign, if not officially endorsing him. Their Hit & Run blog has served as the heart of rational Paul apologetics, and in their skilled hands, that has proven essential to his campaign. Now, as the magazine has Paul on its cover, its new editor has the unpleasant task of looking a little more closely at the candidate, and Matt Welch finds it an unpleasant journey.
Has Paul really disassociated himself from, and "taken moral responsibility" for, these "Ron Paul" newsletters "for over a decade"? If he has, that history has not been recorded by the Nexis database, as best as I can reckon.The first indication I could find of Paul either expressing remorse about the statements or claiming that he did not author them came in an October 2001 Texas Monthly article -- less than eight years ago. ...
So what exactly did Paul and his campaign say about these and more egregious statements during his contentious 1996 campaign for Congress, when Democrat Lefty Morris made the newsletters a constant issue? Besides complaining that the quotes were taken "out of context" and proof of his opponent's "race-baiting," Paul and his campaign defended and took full ownership of the comments.
Indeed. Rather than claiming he had never read these newsletters, as Paul absurdly did on CNN last night, Paul claimed that he himself wrote the newsletters. Matt Welch find this in the contemporaneous Dallas Morning News report on the newsletters during Paul's 1996 Congressional campaign (May 22, 1996, emphasis mine):
Dr. Paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns. He said they should be read and quoted in their entirety to avoid misrepresentation. [...]
In the interview, he did not deny he made the statement about the swiftness of black men.
"If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them," Dr. Paul said.
Matt has more examples of Paul's non-denials in 1996. Twelve years later, Paul wants people to believe that not only did he not write any of his newsletters, he never read them either. His role in the single most effective piece of outreach of his organization, he explained to Wolf Blitzer last night, was as a publisher -- one who didn't bother to read his own publication. These 1996 quotes put lie to his CNN interview answers.
Not only does this show dishonesty, but it indicates that Paul had a lot more involvement in the publication of the despicable statements found in his own newsletter than Paul or his less-rational apologists want to admit. The supremacists and conspiracy theorists surrounding his campaign apparently got attracted by more than just Paul's views on the Constitution; they read the newsletters and determined that Paul was one of them. His refusal to recant in 1996 and his explanation that he can't recall ever reading the newsletters today signal to them that he still wants their support.
People wonder why this matters, given Paul's fringe appeal. It matters because we can't allow this kind of hatred to get legitimized in mainstream politics again. This kind of rhetoric used to be mainstream, and not just in the South, either. Republicans cannot allow the party to get tainted by the stench of racism and conspiracy mongering. If enough of us don't step up and denounce it, strongly and repeatedly, we will not be able to avoid it.
Matt Welch and the people at Reason have reached that same conclusion in regards to libertarianism and their magazine. Good for them, even if it came a little late.
See #248.
McCain has earned that right and paleoPaulie has not.
I was talking primarily about the First & Second Amendments. McCain has supported legislatin in opposition to both of those.
I am not a Ron Paul supporter, so don’t think that’s my motivation, although I do think he’s right about how the Republicans seem to have lost their direction with regard to limited government.
I just think all of the energy directed towards a guy who’s getting 10% at most is misdirected. McCain is a much bigger problem.
We have a lousy crop of candidates this time, but Giuliani and McCain are unacceptable to me.
Make that #245.
Also CFR is having the effect of shutting down the little guys, by limiting what groups of people can do to pool their resources. The moneyed interests will still have their means of communicating their desires to the politicians.
I think it was designed to protect the establishment from the threat of the grassroots.
Cuban Americans have proven to be patriotic by their support for our nation in its wars against whomever. We may serve them by refusing trade with Cuba as we ought to refuse trade with China and with Vietnam but the Cuban Americans were patriots first. PaleoPaulie has proven to be a treasonous weasel in time of war. We ought not to serve Run Paulie at all but rather we should at least deport him to Islamofascistan.
He spent two years in the USAF and three years in TANG. I never said he served exclusively in TANG.
Paul’s active duty service took him to countries such as South Korea, Iran, Ethiopia and Turkey
Correct. Nothing I said contradicts the fact that the USAF flew him to bases in those countries in order to examine pilots and other flight personnel.
If legally found guilty, hang him high!
“That law does no seem to have gotten in the way of the admirable Swiftboat Veterans for Truth or the despicable George Soros and Moveon.org.”
Then you went on to praise McCain
You don’t remember McCain standing in solidarity against the Swift Boat Vets?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42740-2004Aug5.html
“ilk”
You use that word in every other post. I hate that word.
From henceforth, I am referring to you as BlackIlk.
;)
There are reasons why McCain might be nominated and why Dr. Demento won’t be.
“It would not bother me that he be executed if the case were proven against him according to criminal law standards which are higher than rhetorical standards. As several judges (including Potter Stewart) observed, we know pornography when we see it.”
Good thing!
Imagine spankin’ it to a power tool catalog instead of victoria’s secret!
If that's your standard, would you agree that John Kerry served honrably? How about Julius Rosenberg?
No, I'm claiming that he believed their bombing runs were immoral and that it was wrong for him to help bring those bombing runs about by particpating in the process of readying pilots for those runs.
You sound like those idiots who bitch about Bush "only" serving in the Air National Guard.
There are a number of distinctions. The most important is that Bush did not take a government check in exchange for doing something that he thought was wrong. Bush did something he believed was morally correct, not immoral.
I served in the Army during Clinton's ridiculous adventures in the Balkans. Myself and almost every other soldier I knew realized that the whole thing was bull$hit, but we still gave a 100% effort and got the job done. According to you, I suppose we did not serve with honor.
Not at all. You have given no indication that the only reason you served was for the money. Moreover, the fact that you served in that period indicates that you personally volunteered to serve, and the fact that you were deployed in the Balkans shows that you did not attempt to avoid being posted to a forward area, but voluntarily put yourself in harm's way.
That's laudable as well as honorable.
Thank you for all the replies.
I think you will find that I said that I was what you would wriongly call a “neocon.”
“No, I don’t. I think trade with China and Vietnam is a disgrace. It is NOT treason which is paleoPaulie’s entrenched habit. Since paleoPaulie has no morals in foreign policy and Bush has somewhat flawed morality in the respects you mention, there is no moral equivalency between patriot Bush and treasonous weasel Dr. Demento. Will you next pull from the leftist rhetorical quiver the dreaded H word (hypocrisy)? That won’t work either.”
That’s not what I asked.
You said Paul was a traitor for supporting trade with communist Cuba. He has no power to do anything about it however.
What does that make Bush for actually expanding effort to increase trade with China and Vietnam, and then try to sell US ports to a state-run company from Dubai of all places?
Please answer and try to leave ranting about Paul out of it.
I would be willing to, except that he himself told the USA Gold newsletter that he believes his service was wrong and he told the Dartmouth Review that a strong inducement for his staying in the military for the duration of his medical residency was because it gave him shorter hours with better pay.
Any person who serves and then says they only served because it allowed them to work the system in safety - and then implies that the other people who served and who actually risked their lives were wrong to do so - will get no thanks from me.
Neither are libertarians. And Ron Paul is a libertarian who is the favored choice of palaeoconservatives for President.
Um, being $hit canned?
And it will get worked around. Witness the Ron Paul blimp, helicopter, and timeshare ads. The media and interest groups will find a way.
“No, I’m claiming that he believed their bombing runs were immoral and that it was wrong for him to help bring those bombing runs about by particpating in the process of readying pilots for those runs.”
Cite a source? I can’t find any. Everything I’ve seen is that his experience as a flight surgeon led him to the idea of non-interventionism, not that he was opposed to Vietnam while he served.
In fact, he worked in support of Goldwater, a hawk, in ‘64, and led the Texas Delegation to nominate Ronald Reagan for president in 1976
Here’s the source
http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/taylorpaulintrvw.html
Taylor: Did you spend time in the Vietnam theater?
Congressman Paul: I was an Air Force Flight surgeon on active duty from about 1963. One personal experience I had that really made me start to think about the war was that I was doing many physicals on Army warrant officers who were seeking to become helicopter pilots. I don’t know if you remember, but in the early years of the Vietnam war many of our helicopters were shot down. That made me think seriously about my role in the Vietnam fiasco. In one way I was not directly participating, but indirectly I was. As the years have gone by, I have become much more fascinated with foreign policy as a result of that experience and it has played a role in leading me to totally reject our insane foreign policy which causes us to get involved in places like Vietnam.
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