Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters? (Throw Rockwell Under the Bus Time)

Reason Magazine ^

[mnehring]

Libertarian movement veterans, and a Paul campaign staffer, say it was "paleolibertarian" strategist Lew Rockwell

Julian Sanchez and David Weigel | January 16, 2008

Ron Paul doesn't seem to know much about his own newsletters. The libertarian-leaning presidential candidate says he was unaware, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, of the bigoted rhetoric about African Americans and gays that was appearing under his name. He told CNN last week that he still has "no idea" who might have written inflammatory comments such as "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks"—statements he now repudiates. Yet in interviews with reason, a half-dozen longtime libertarian activists—including some still close to Paul—all named the same man as Paul's chief ghostwriter: Ludwig von Mises Institute founder Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr.

Tax filings from 1985 and 2001 show that Rockwell, Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982, was a vice president of Ron Paul & Associates, the corporation that published the Ron Paul Political Report and the Ron Paul Survival Report. The company was dissolved in 2001. During the period when the most incendiary items appeared—roughly 1989 to 1994—Rockwell and the prominent libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard championed an open strategy of exploiting racial and class resentment to build a coalition with populist "paleoconservatives," producing a flurry of articles and manifestos whose racially charged talking points and vocabulary mirrored the controversial Paul newsletters recently unearthed by The New Republic. To this day Rockwell remains a friend and advisor to Paul—accompanying him to major media appearances; promoting his candidacy on the LewRockwell.com blog; publishing his books; and peddling an array of the avuncular Texas congressman's recent writings and audio recordings.

Rockwell has denied responsibility for the newsletters' contents to The New Republic's Jamie Kirchick. Rockwell twice declined to discuss the matter with reason, maintaining this week that he had "nothing to say." He has characterized discussion of the newsletters as "hysterical smears aimed at political enemies" of The New Republic. Paul himself called the controversy "old news," and "ancient history" when we reached him last week, and he has not responded to further request for comment.

But a source close to the Paul presidential campaign told reason that Rockwell authored much of the content of the Political Report and Survival Report. "If Rockwell had any honor he'd come out and I say, ‘I wrote this stuff,'" said the source, who asked not to be named because Paul remains friendly with Rockwell and is reluctant to assign responsibility for the letters. "He should have done it 10 years ago."

Rockwell was publicly named as Paul's ghostwriter as far back as a 1988 issue of the now-defunct movement monthly American Libertarian. "This was based on my understanding at the time that Lew would write things that appeared in Ron's various newsletters," former AL editor Mike Holmes told reason. "Neither Ron nor Lew ever told me that, but other people close to them such as Murray Rothbard suggested that Lew was involved, and it was a common belief in libertarian circles."

..more at Reason.com

[Puddleglum]

Not just Rockwell, I think. There seems to be more than one writer, judging by the varying tone of the columns.

[DugwayDuke]

As I’ve said on other threads, a lot of the internet support for Ron Paul can be traced to Rockwell or Justin Raimondo.

Both Antiwar and lewrockwell used to have a banner listing the other as a sister site. Both are linked to the Von Mises Institute where lew rockwell is the president. Raimondo is a policy analyst at the Center for Libertarian Studies. CLS is formally affiliated with the Von Mises Institute. The links between Antiwar, Von Mises, lew rockwell are many. They are all avid supporters of Ron Paul.

[AuntB]

Hey!! Ron Paul just won a straw poll! Maybe someone can finally see his support is NOT coming from conservatives.

A DEMOCRATIC PARTY STRAW POLL

It may be snowing here in Washington, D.C., but the sun is apparently shinning on Congressman Ron Paul, who edged out Senator John McCain in the 2008 Democratic Party Republican Straw Poll. Meanwhile, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ended up in a familiar place: sixth.

Top 3 results: Candidate % Rep. Ron Paul 25.72%

Sen. John McCain 24.73%

Gov. Mike Huckabee 17.17%

http://www.democrats.org/a/2008/01/paul_tops_mccai_2.php

[x]

Yes, throw Rockwell under the bus and drive back and forth over him a few times.

It's time for a look at the real Rockwell and his agenda.

[DugwayDuke]

Check out this thread on another potential link between Rockwell and Ron Paul.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1954778/posts?page=15

The essence of this thread is that the Constitution Party is courting Ron Paul.

According to one poster there, the Constitution party is linked to the League of the South.

FYI, Lew Rockwell was one of the founders of the League of the South. Also, there have been several pro ron Paul articles posted on the Constitution Party website.

One begins to wonder after reading the article starting this thread on Paul’s long term political strategy and the Constitution Party thread if Ron Paul may be pulling a gigantic scam on gullible conservative republicans. Here’s the outline of the potential scam. Ron uses his republican credentials to raise a large sum of campaign cash then uses this cash to run as the Constitution Party nominee.