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.
More than that, I am finding a LOT of old interviews from 96 and before where he referred to comments in the newsletters and was trying to justify what they meant. I can't find any denials he wrote them until the 2001 article. Until then, he stood behind them and tried to justify them.
So are you then saying that he’s incompetent and lied back in 1996 when he said, “when he wrote the columns.”
I said he took responsibility for the articles and apologized for not overseeing the newsletter more carefully.
Comrade.
We already got confirmation from two Ron Paul supporters that Ron Paul was lying in 1996.
We really don't need to beat that dead horse anymore.
I've noticed that the Paul haters either have a terrific sense of humor or none at all. Ain't no in between.
You people are wacky.
“I said he took responsibility for the articles and apologized for not overseeing the newsletter more carefully.”
I am not asking about responsibility. Did he write the newsletters or not. He said yes in ‘96 and no in ‘08. Which is it? His “responsibility words” are Clintonesque. Which time did he LIE?
He stopped writing when he left Congress.
So, it depends on which article we are discussing.
We’re looking at the word “produced” here in 1996.
We aren’t looking at the word wrote or authored in 1996.
It does not appear that he is saying “I didn’t write these articles” in 1996, but that doesn’t prove that he did write them.
For whatever reason, in 1996, he thought it best to defend the statements expressed in the newsletters instead of explaining that a staffer (or just a supporter who wanted to keep Ron Paul’s name in the public eye after Ron Paul left Washington for private medical practice) wrote the articles.
I don’t see any lies here.
” His supporters always seem to divine some alternate meaning to his statements. He never seems to mean what he says, at least according to all the Ron Paul supporters. He must be a “complex” individual.”
Funny, for those with PDS I notice it’s common to lie about and smear the man, and then find some smarmy way to insult anyone who comes to his defense.
“I don’t see any lies here.”
That’s the PDS smear technique.
Lie about what he said, then accuse anyone of correcting the record of making “excuses.”
He has admitted having a 'ghost writer' write some of the articles which are in his name in the newsletter but takes responsibility for all of them which were in his newsletter after he left office
Comrade.
What's more interesting is that there only 1 site that has this information. The other sites that mention this basicly took the dirt and ran with it. The site that is prominant goes by the name of "Conservatives Against Fred Thompson".
Conservatives Against Fred Thompson
A thorough search of the "Conservatives Against Fred" site can find no information on who the staff is, who's posting the info, etc.
Who are they? Why the secrecy within the website? What are they trying to hide?
They have the following copyright towards the bottom of their "About Us" page:
"Copyright © 2007 Kansans For Life, all rights reserved."
Just one problem, KFL has no links to this anti-Fred site, and a search of their site comes up with no records about Fred Thompson. KFL is a member of the National Right to Life Committee, and the NRLC has endorsed Fred Thompson.
Here is what I found on the WHOIS search:
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=conservativesagainstfred.com
The article that's linked to in the anti-Fred site was written by the editorial director Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com:
So the ONLY site thats actually "dedicated" to trashing Thompson is more than likely something set up by a paul supporter just like the sites that were purportedly set up to "support" other Republican candidates.
I think you’re mistaken.
I’m here to clear this all up for you.
It appears that no one directly asked Ron Paul in 1996 if he was the actual author of the articles.
For whatever reason, he thought it best to defend the content of the newsletters that appeared under his name.
In truth, he was the publisher, not the author, of many of those articles. Some of the articles he himself is likely to have written. We’ll probably never know who exactly wrote which articles.
Ron Paul will clearly take a hit on this though, as subscribers to his newsletter won’t be able to trust that Ron Paul himself is writing the articles.
Unless someone can find something like - “When asked if he himself wrote these articles, Ron Paul said “yes”.” - from 1996 I don’t think that it can be said that Ron Paul lied in 1996.
All clear now. Ron Paul did not lie.
The medal ceremonies are a good example of why Paul is so effective as a candidate. They are the result of efforts by his staff to secure medals for veterans who never received them. These are moving events, and Paul does dozens of them each year. The recipients' families often weep when they receive the medals that Paul's staff has had framed, usually with photographs of the soldier as a young man.
http://www.texasmonthly.com/2001-10-01/feature7-3.php
antiwar.com, figures.. Good catch.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re saying.
I think that it’s best to clarify what happened in 1996.
I don’t think he lied at all.
It might’ve been a mistake for him to defend the statements in the newsletters in 1996, but he didn’t explicitly say that he wrote the articles in question.
The reporters mistakenly assumed, in 1996, that Paul himself wrote the articles in question.
That seems to be the truth.
That would make sense.
I can imagine a scenario where someone says to Ron Paul in 1989, “Hey, you know, you might as well keep this newsletter going, you mind if I do it?” And Ron Paul would reply, “I don’t care, I’m going back to being a doctor.”
I’m not saying that’s what happened, I’m just saying that sounds reasonable.
Most of the most controversial statements were from the period when Ron Paul was a doctor and out of politics, the period where it would be reasonable to assume that he might not have had the tightest control over the contents of the newsletter.
“When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.”
That seems very reasonable.
Why are people claiming that he lied in 1996?
For whatever reason, he did defend statements in the newsletter in 1996, but that has nothing to do with lying.
“antiwar.com, figures.. Good catch.”
Thanks.
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