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."

gays-for-ron.blogspot.com

I don't want someone in the White House who is 'better than Ron Paul'. Fact is, apart from John Edwards, the candidates are either corrupt puppets in bed with lobbyists, candidates with no real imagination who steal sound bites from other candidates and quote Lincoln too much or....like most of today's rock groups....lack real talent that comes from hard work.....just nice faces to appeal to the youth....someone higher up will feed them the lines eventually.

Corporate America wants us to choose from their 'more of the same' or the man Obama who says he wants change but talks AIR and doesn't say anything concrete on how he hopes to accomplish change. The same stupid mistake the Democrats made the last time. Vote for me because you hate the other part. It's stupid and it won't work. There's more baby-boomers with sense than the stupid young folks who don't know jack about life....you have to live it first.

Ron Paul and John Edwards are the only ones I hear that actually want to change the GOVERNMENT rather than just want to be the new Big Wig Puppet of an already corrupted government.

Vote Ron Paul or John Edwards.

Well, RPGuy, my post didn't accuse Paul of homophobia or racism, though it certainly entertains that possibility:

I assume Paul would have intervened if anything he found really objectionable went out in a newsletter that bore his name. At the absolute least, he's guilty of some world class ignorance and negligence in letting this crap be published under his name without discovering that it was.

And nowhere in your response here, or in the piece on your blog, do you offer up any explanation for the racist/homophobic crap from the newsletters appearing under Paul's name.

What's the explanation? He didn't even bother to read material under a banner that included his name?

He knew about the quotes, didn't agree with them, but allowed them to be printed "for the good of the movement?"

Neither of those explanations says much for Paul. If you have a better one, lets have it.

As for GOOBS and the statement that "Ron Paul and John Edwards are the only ones I hear that actually want to change the GOVERNMENT rather than just want to be the new Big Wig Puppet of an already corrupted government"--why exactly would Ron Paul ever be your choice over Edwards? Do you think that Paul is right about his idea that government IS the problem? Do you think that killing environmental regulations will improve the environment? Do you think the gold standard and the death of the Fed Reserve are going to solve our immense economic dilemma? Do you think that we overregulate businesses and corporations? Do you think that Medicare is just a hinderance to good medical care?

"Change" itself is neither good nor bad, it just means that something will be different. That may be a good difference and it damn well may be a bad difference. You have to look at the substance of the change.

Outside of individual civil rights, on which Paul is very good, I see his other ideas of change creating nothing but bigger, larger, and more dangerous problems.

Lee Russ-

First of all, Ron Paul is not the candidate campaigning ont he term "change", that has been taken over byt he likes of Obama and Clinton mainly, as well as Edwards and McCain throwing it in there. They are all clearly just trying to play into the general public sentiment, which is that "Americans want cahnge". But nobody, not even the American people, really know what to change exactly, or how exactly to change it.

I do believe that Ron Paul is one of the only candidates (if not the only candidate) that actually has a vision of what he wants to change, and how he will accomplish this. You may not necessarily agree with the direction he wants to move America, but I believe you are being too hard on Ron Paul, and not hard enough on any other candidate. Every single candidat in this race has dirt, bad dirt, in their history, but when ever someone points out the other candidates dirt, the media labels the person who brings it up as "attacking" the other people.

And also, I do not believe in the statements issued under his name, I feel they demonstrate a general ignorance and hatred of man kind. I do, hwever, believe that the only thing Paul is guilty of is ngligence. The guy is a freakin' Doctor (yes of medicine, not just a cheesy PHD). He was not in Congress when the stuff was published, and probably just didnt pay any mind to it, as he was busy delivering babies, many times at no cost to poorer, immigrant women. (darn racist, providing low-cost/free care to immigrants, the bastid! sorry for the sarcasm...). While it is his fault that he did not pay enough attention to what went out under his name, the reality is that he probably never even knew such News Letters existed until some one exposed it. As a person, i just think he dropped the ball, but who doesn't make mistakes?

Our past 2 presidents were pot heads and coke heads, yet no one ever brings this up again because it is old news, and just re-enforces the fact that people are people, and even the presiden is apt to make mistakes. Unfortunately for Ron Pau, his might end up being the demise of his candidacy, and it is because people like you choose to think negatively of only him, while dismissing the the mistakes of the othe candidates.

I still support him.
1: I cannot believe that Dennis Kucinich would want a racist as his running mate. watch:
www.youtube.com
or
2: Ron Paul has said one of his few criticisms of the Constitution is that it didn't end slavery.
3: If he DID write this stuff--it was 15+ years ago. Ron Paul used to support the Death Penalty but has said "since learning more about it I now oppose it" So, he is capable of THINKING and changing his opinion. He is still the best candidate because ending the slaughter in Iraq and the insane racist War Against(some)Drugs, which are both causing endless horror CANNOT WAIT. Think about it. gemmie

Shawnboy:

I find it beyond incredible that "he probably never even knew such News Letters existed until some one exposed it." These newsletters bore his name and circulated through the very same anti-government crowd as Paul travelled in. I will not buy that excuse without some very good evidence.

As to Paul not being the candidate who is campaigning on the term "change," I never said he was. I'm responding to the specific statement by GOOBS, in this thread, that "Ron Paul and John Edwards are the only ones I hear that actually want to change the GOVERNMENT..."

I have no doubt that you "do believe that Ron Paul is one of the only candidates (if not the only candidate) that actually has a vision of what he wants to change, and how he will accomplish this." As I said, my opinion is that the changes he wants to make will result in a far worse situation than what we have now.

Gemmie:

To say that you will vote for Paul "ending the slaughter in Iraq and the insane racist War Against (some) Drugs, which are both causing endless horror CANNOT WAIT" looks only at two things he wants to do. He wants to do a lot more, like weaken/end the government regulation of corporations & the environment, eventually do away with such programs as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as we know it, end the income tax and the IRS itself, and do away with the separation of church and state.

I don't want to live in that America. And creating that America is too high a price to pay to end Iraq, which can be ended by other means under other presidents.

And I'm still waiting for a plausible explanation for those statements having been published under his name without complaint from him.

Bravo, who said the left and the neocons could not work together. Perfectly timed smear campaign. Interesting how this all came out on the eve of the primary in which Paul had his best shot. Congrats on helping destroy the democratic process. Left wing, Neocons, and Fox News, is just one big happy family today. Keep printing out money and stealing from the middle class.

To the last visitor--

Interesting how you had exactly nothing to say about the substance of the story.

Assume for the sake of argument that TNR deliberately timed the story to coincide with the NH primary--that doesn't change the fact that publications bearing Paul's name said these things. I know I'm speaking into the vacuum of zealotry, but...WHAT'S THE EXPLANATION?

All the zealous defenders of Paul made me curious enough to do some checking around. Surprise--the newsletter crap was being discussed on the web at least as far back as June of 2007.

That's when Sara of the Orcinus blog wrote an in-depth critique of the Paul camp's "explanations" for the horrific newsletter comments. Among her comments:

So Paul's facile assertion that somewhere, somehow, a nasty, scheming ghostwriter slipped all those hateful words in under his name is just ridiculous. To swallow this line, you'd have to be as daft as the White Queen, perfectly willing to believe half a dozen impossible things before breakfast:

1. That the ghostwriter who wrote The Ron Paul Survival Report was never really under Ron Paul's control

2. That somebody other than Ron Paul put their money on the line to pay the writer (these things don't come cheap -- I charged a minimum of $1K per page for my copy, and his was eight pages per issue).

3. And, by extension: that somebody other than Ron Paul owns the resulting intellectual property. (It'd be interesting to see what would happen if some other right wingnut started plagarizing those articles.)

4. That Ron Paul never read, commented on, or approved what was written for the newsletter that bore his name -- and was so critical to building his early political base

5. That The Ron Paul Survival Report was written, laid out, published, and shipped during the night by elves, with no input from Paul at all

6. That Ron Paul actually had nothing whatsoever to do with the Survival Report Apparently, his name ended up in the title as some kind of perverse coincidence. He was out of town that day. All those days.

I also did a little checking of comments left on other blogs covering this story. Whew! If Paul isn't a card-carrying member of the far, far survivalist right, he sure seems to have a lot of supporters who talk, write and insult like the members of that group do.

Rather than being upset by the fact that the TNR piece came out just before the NH vote, we'd do better asking how Dr. Paul manages to deal with so many media types without (a) being asked pointedly about these newsletters, (b) having his rather extreme positions on the economy, environment, UN, religion in America, etc., brought up for the viewing/reading public to see and hear, (c) being asked specifically about what appear to be very strong ties to the survivalist/militia movement some years back, and (d) whether he still has those ties and, if not, when he severed them and why.

Lee Russ

The reason the MSM hasn't pursued the newsletters or alleged racist ties is very simple... under close scrutiny they don't hold water. Bloggers are not journalists, and unfortunately most Network newspeople are not either. The few newsletter articles that can be tied to Paul directly, have out of context quotes from him talking about heavy sh*t, real sh*t that can't be digested in one sentence nibbles.

The CIA has been at the very least been complicate in allowing "friendly" governments to pump hard drugs into our minority communities.

Washington has looted the middle class for welfare programs that work poorly and raise generations to believe that charity is a god given right that the government doles out monthly, with a nifty byproduct of convincing the lower socio-economic class of all races that their problems are caused by whoever looks and eats different than they do.

A race war is a horrible possibility that can be avoided by ending the government policies that breed racism and educating everyone across the board. Anyone willing to read and listen to Paul can figure out his stance on this.

Some questions of my own:

1. What would happen if High School US history classes read "Hegemony or Survival" along side the typical, america is infallible, Washington, Lincoln, and Kennedy were saints BS they get fed currently.

2. What would happen if white churches stopped worrying about boys kissing boys, electing war profiteers just because they have the gall to call themselves "christians", and forcing morals down Caesar's throat and focused instead on walking a true christ like path and having real charity on the down-trodden and gentiles, the lepers and the whores?

3. What would happen if Washington trimmed the budget back to 2000 levels and abolished the illegal income tax allowing those properly led flocks the disposable income to support those charitable acts?

4. If you think letting the market control business is such an extreme position, then please explain how well our currently heavily regulated system is doing at enforcing monopoly laws with big media, oil, agriculture, drug, and insurance companies.

As for the quotes not directly linkable; is it so hard to believe that a man whose campaign is run almost entirely by grass-roots volunteers with no ties to the official campaign might not know about every nut job brandishing his name just because he supports small government? Small government that is supported all kinds of people, not just the Klan And definitely not by Nazis, who are fascists, thus supporting a large central government.

You might remember the the NY Times printed a retraction to it's article about "what appear to be very strong ties to the survivalist/militia movement some years back, and (d) whether he still has those ties and, if not, when he severed them and why" because their source was a nutcase blogger, whose source was Bill White. Please feel free to look up Mr. White and make up your own mind about his credibility.

I find your positions to be both horribly misinformed and to assume that those that don't hold you views are idiots that should have their minds changed by government force. I choose to have faith in the decency of the common man to do right because it is right.

griddlebrick

Lee, since you seem to want a response from be I would oblige. The TNR piece was a smear. They know that Ron Paul is not a racist, but are looking for anything to discredit him because they don't like his platform and do not want this message getting out. If you want facts, check politicfact.com It is a website that checks fact against politicians statements. Paul consistently does extremely well in telling the truth, but in one case he came up with a rare false. He stated that he never voted for a measure not expressly authorized by the constitution. Well politicfact.com said this was false when they reviewed his voting record. They found 2 instances where he deviated from this. 1. He voted for the continuing operation of NASA. and 2. he voted for Martin Luther King Day as a holiday in the early 80's. Interesting how that the smear campaign seems to be claiming he hates King, when years earlier he voted for a holiday for him. I have not checked the public record, but unlike TNR who has a notorious record of smears in the past (Once compared Ross Perot to Hitler, this is what TNR does to political enemies) I have no reason to doubt them. The bottom line is TNR won, because the article served its purpose and nobody including news organizations these days are actually going to check the actual facts. Paul's whole life clearly demonstrates he is the farthest thing from racist, but TNR wants us to believe that the most consistently honest person in the race is lying about Martin Luther King being a hero and for some reason voted for a holiday for him in 1983, but for some reason hated him in between these periods of time. Here is the link to information:

www.politifact.com

The only good news is bad news.
Why does MSM not tell you about Dr. Paul's message? More than half of what I read is smears. Dr. Paul is for your individual liberty, he does not believe we ought to be in collective groups but judged as individuals. What we ought to be talking about is the Godless Neocon agenda which is against American values that are rooted in Christianity. They've disavowed the Just War Doctrine and like the Godless Communist, of which both are financed by the same bankers, are the spreading their philosophy at the tip of bayonet and lies. Why is this not brought up or debated. Do we want a country run by elite who decide for Americans what is right at the same time tossing out the Constitution?
NEOCONS, people believe in lying and constant war to keep the state healthy it is their editor lackeys in the MSM smearing Dr. Paul.

TEFLON RON

I urge my fellow Americans to hear and spread Dr. Paul's good news.
I, son of Mexican migrants, have spoken.

If we're talking the obligation for one to take personal responsibility, something don't smell right in the kitchen!!

I can understand one, or even two issues of Paul's newsletters having "plausible deniability" regarding comments. After that, it's complicity and denial, nothing less. ESPECIALLY if one's name is the entire title!

With this, along with Ron Paul's bizarre theory that Islamic terrorism is rooted in our occupying Arab lands, I find the Paul candidacy truly wanting. I was a big fan, and I'm glad he and Kucinich opened up the dialogue beyond the same insider patter.

I'm sick of the "establishment" running the world and destroying our freedoms. On the other hand, "change," for changes sake (a la Ron Paul) doesn't necessarily point to a better America.

It's broken, it needs fixing, or even reinvention. I no longer think Ron Paul, once you strip off the Libertarian veneer, has the ability or the positions to keep America strong and to expand the personal liberties of ALL Americans, not just Born Agains.

Griddlebrick says that "I find your positions to be both horribly misinformed and to assume that those that don't hold you views are idiots that should have their minds changed by government force."

Based on what exactly? There is zero in my post or responses that would lead anyone to objectively think that. I suspect it is you who has a serious problem with anyone "disagreeing" with what you so clearly see.

You also said "If you think letting the market control business is such an extreme position, then please explain how well our currently heavily regulated system is doing at enforcing monopoly laws with big media, oil, agriculture, drug, and insurance companies."

How does the fact that there are flaws in our attempts to control monopolies make Paul's position on giving businesses free rein any less extreme? It says that we need to do a better job of controlling monopolies; killing all regulations simply makes the current very bad situation even worse.

KB934 says "Interesting how that the smear campaign seems to be claiming he hates King..."

What smear campaign? TNR's? I don't speak for TNR and I didn't say I think Paul is anti-King. I said that newsletters under Paul's name have been pretty insulting to King. And I'd STILL like that explanation of how Paul, if he says he didn't know about the smears of King, could possibly have avoided knowing.

This ain't a smear on my part, brother, just a simple little question that all the fervent Paul supporters haven't yet answered. I can just imagine what the response of the MSM and the entire Republican machine would be if one of the Democratic candidates had once had newsletters published under their names which smeared Ron Paul or Ronald Reagan as fascists, & called white people greedily insane devils, then professed to have never known what the newsletters were saying.

Lee Russ, what exactly are you questioning then? Paul has taken responsibility for it and says it was his fault for allowing these things to go out with his name. All the things in his newsletter with the racist and sick thinking goes everything the man has preached for over 30 years in public service. If anything his negligence has only hurt him and his reputation. I am just pointing out that it is not a reflection of Paul himself. This all came out already in the 90's and he has repeatedly accepted fault for this. What exactly do you want him to do?? The man made a mistake. He started a newsletter, but then became much more involved with his primarily responsiblities of being a doctor and a politician and just let the paper run on its own using his name. Maybe this is OK if it is Oprah magazine, but Paul obviously used poor judgment on who he hired to run this paper. I think this is pretty obvious and is pointless to argue. It really is indefensible. (If I had to guess, it was probably a money maker for him and he treated like a business without being personally involved). While there is no way in hell I will defend that awful newslletter, I will defend the man Ron Paul, because this is not representative of who he is. The man has referenced on multiple occasions on how he respects Martin Luther King and considers him a personal hero, so he either is lying or he never so those writings?? I think he is telling the truth and the vote, which completely went against his usual voting record in 1983 by voting for MLK day as a holiday, to me as a reasonable person shows how highly he thought of King. Back at this time this was not an open and shut case. The vote in the house was 338-90 and in the Senate it was 78 to 22. Reagan reluctantly signed the bill as he originally spoke out against it, and of note current Vice President Don Cheney voted against it as well as current presidential candidate John McCain. Does this make them racist?? Not necessarily. They very well could have been preaching small government and trying to keep governmental costs down and felt that no one individual in american history should have a holiday for them. For me personally I can see the argument because I am a believer in small government and less government spending, but I think what King did was worthy of this, so I personally think this was the right move. As far as the TNR kook that wrote the thing, he thinks Ron Paul speaks in code to people, so I have to admit when you are dealing with that sort of lunacy, it is tough to argue. Sort of like arguing with an insane person.

KB934 asks: "what exactly are you questioning then?"

I don't know how much clearer I can be. Paul says (I assume) that he didn't know what the newsletters were saying. My question is, under what possible, plausible circumstances would a person of Paul's education and standing not know what the newsletters were saying, especially when (a) the newsletters bore his name, and (b) the newsletters circulated through the very same crowd of anti-government "patriots" that Paul was part of. You actually believe that not only did Paul not read any of these newsletters, but that none of his Texan buddies, business acquaintances, patients, or fellow townspeople ever mentioned it to him? You really buy that?

I don't claim to know if Paul actually believes the things the newsletters said. But I can certainly imagine a younger Ron Paul knowing that the newsletters were saying these things and allowing it to continue because he wanted to build his political base and wanted to appeal to a very right wing audience that included tons of racists. That is plausible to me. Not proven, not fact, but plausible.

If you can imagine an equally believable scenario in which Paul does not know what is being said in a newsletter named for him, circulating through people in his own political crowd, tell me.

Lee, I don't know how much clearer I can be. Point blank answer the question for yourself, A) You don't think that Paul is a racist. You believe that Ron Paul is an honest man and when he says Martin Luther King is a personal hero and that he denounces what was written, that he is being honest. i.e. logic would suggest that he would not knowingly let these views go out if he truly was such a big fan of Martin Luther King. You actually believe his defense that he stopped being heavily involved with the newsletter during his years when he got out of politics and became a full time doctor. B) You think he is a racist. The whole idea of having Martin Luther King as a hero is a facade for political purposes as well as voting for the holiday in 1983, because even though he is a closet racist he wants to hide this fact in 1983. He hates gays too as well as jewish people. He speaks in code as the TNR writer suggest. He wrote all the newsletter or at the very least knew about everything that went out under the newsletter and he approved it C) He suffers from being bipolar and he was not a racist when he was in the Congress by voting for a holiday recognizing a black man, then changes his mind years later in the 90's and now thinks King is a horrible person and hates him and becomes a racist in the 90's by either writing or knowing allowing racist literature to go out under his name, then he shifts his position once again and continually states that King is a hero of his when he becomes a congressmen again in 1997 and suddenly is not a racist anymore. (Extreme sarcasm) My answer is A) He is not a racist. He become disinvolved with the newsletter that bore his name over many years negligently so. It really comes down to do you think he is a racist or not? The idea that you seem to be saying originally is that you say you are not saying he is a racist, but that you don't believe him when he says he did not know or see what went out under his name? This argument is completely illogical. If you don't believe him about being unaware and think that he was aware, then he would be a racist, so essentially that is the assertion you truly are making. In the words of the idiotic Bill O'Reilly, What say you?

On a side not that idiot Kirchbek or whatever his exact name is, said he does not believe Paul is racist and has pretty much admitted that he did it to smear him on a blog already.

I'm sorry Lee, I should have said that the positions that you cowardly parrot while avoiding taking an actual stance are both horribly misinformed and assume that those that don't hold you views are idiots that should have their minds changed by government force. You have faithfully added another article about an article about an article that implies that Ron Paul is a racist and yours got a link on the Drudge Retort who apparently doesn't mind linking the same sh*t over and over again no matter how many times it's been debunked. This is old news! Just because some weasel at TNR decides to muck-rake on election day and you copy and paste their nonsense doesn't make it new news.

As for your views of markets, if you really believe layers upon layers of patchwork government works better than wiping the slate clean and seriously enforcing property rights, then we can't see eye to eye on that one. You can probably find Atlas Shrugged in Cliff Notes form, it might be good for you.

griddlebrick

If you don't believe him about being unaware and think that he was aware, then he would be a racist

If you think that makes him a racist, then, yes, I think he's a racist. As I've said several times, I think a real good possibility is that he condoned the publication of these statements as a way of building the movement. Whether he personally beieves or used to believe the content of the statements I have no idea.

And to some degree, you're avoiding the specifics of my question. In your mind, how would it have been possible for Paul not to know what was in a newsletter bearing his name and circulating through his own political crowd?

As for your views of markets, if you really believe layers upon layers of patchwork government works better than wiping the slate clean and seriously enforcing property rights, then we can't see eye to eye on that one.

No, we certainly can't. Can you at least answer how you think it's possible for Paul not to know what was in a newsletter bearing his name and circulating through his own political crowd?

You have faithfully added another article about an article about an article that implies that Ron Paul is a racist and yours got a link on the Drudge Retort who apparently doesn't mind linking the same sh*t over and over again no matter how many times it's been debunked.

The term "debunked" suggests that Paul had nothing to do with the newsletters. They were published in his name by people who had his approval. He actively solicited subscriptions. Some of the offensive articles included first-person references to Paul and his family, which means they were either written by Paul or ghost written to appear that way.

There are only two possibilities here, and neither one is flattering to Paul: Either he wrote that stuff and is now lying about it, or he let other people write that stuff in his name and was unaware about what they were doing.

If the latter is true, I have concerns about a president who can be so blind to what subordinates are doing. Don't you?

While the swarm has likely moved on from this post to others, note that the folks at Reason have reason to think that the author of the offensive quotes in the newsletters is none other Lew Rockwell, Paul's former Chief of Staff, a current fan and supporter of Paul, and a fellow member of the von Mises Institute:

... 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.

Financial records 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.

If this is true, sounds to me like, as I speculated earlier in this thread, the racist crap was part of an attempt to "build the movement." And if Rockwell was writing the stuff, I do not for one moment believe that Paul was unaware of the content--they're too close, not to mention the already stated reasons for that being unlikely.

Ahh, honesty and principle.