Ron Paul may not be perfect

Why do you hate Ron Paul, The Only Man Who Can Save America?

To think any of the other Fab 5 will defeat the Dems with a warmongering platform is pollyannaish.

Fed Up on January 10, 2008 at 12:43 AM

Perhaps. But to think Ron Paul will beat the Dems is evidence of certifiable insanity.

LagunaDave on January 10, 2008 at 12:55 AM

He was retired from politics at the time, and didn’t edit the newsletter. And for that lack of oversight, he has apologized. Hang him for that, if you want but don’t suggest that the words are his without proof.

The burden of proof is on Ron Paul. To say he has not offered anything convincing would be an understatement. And his supporters just continue to beclown themselves.

Even if the utterly implausible claim that he had no inkling of what his never-acknowledged, totally anonymous mystery ghostwriter was writing in the first person (complete with personal greetings and anecdotes) under his name for a decade or more, it would still be a lapse in judgment and responsibility sufficient to disqualify him from running for any office as a member of the Republican party, as far as I’m concerned.

If you have statements made by Ron Paul (conclusively, not guilt-by-association quotes) that demonstrate racism or bigotry, produce them or shut up.

I don’t think you’re the designated censor for this blog, but anyway I’ve got a better idea. If you can prove that every single one of the bigoted statements published under his name were not written by Ron Paul, why don’t you do so?

LagunaDave on January 10, 2008 at 1:29 AM

In a court of law, the onus is upon the accuser. Unless of course you’re talking about Guantanomo…

Fed Up on January 10, 2008 at 1:36 AM

Is a someone who supports a conspiracy theorist actually reduced to pleading the presumption of innocence for a politician? Oh, the irony…

RP stands accused of being a kook, not a crook. Politics is not a court of law and your analogy is silly.

But if you want to play this game, in a court of law, evidence is presented against the accused. The accused can then call witnesses in his favor, and otherwise rebut the accusation. Then the jury (in this case, us) considers the evidence and reaches a verdict.

We have a mountain of damning evidence against the defendant. The defendant has offered inconsistent, evasive, vague and implausible explanations for the evidence at various times. He has offered no actual exculpatory evidence of his own, other than his own denials.

In the absence of any convincing evidence exhonorating him or otherwise seriously challenging the prosecution’s case, the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

As in “guilty as hell.”

LagunaDave on January 10, 2008 at 2:00 AM

Yep. It is your word against his, and against the body of his writing that directly contradicts the statements alleged to be his.

Don’t be ridiculous, it is not “my word” or anyone else’s against his. There are numerous documents published under his name. They are real, physical objects. They would be admissable in a court of law.

I don’t have access to the newsletters, just Kirchick’s excerpts. But according to Kirchick: “Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all.” Obviously the racist/bigoted statements don’t have his byline or Kirchick would have a smoking gun. He admits he has no proof.

Proof exists in the minds of those who weigh the evidence – it does not exist in isolation. And Kirchick has plenty of evidence. Nothing you have said yet raises a reasonable doubt that RP wrote at least some of the words in question.

Well, first, let me say that not all of the items pointed out by Kirchick are offensive.

That’s true; some are merely insane.

But the ones that people are actually talking about, the ones relating to racism or bigotry are in opposition to Paul’s views and public statements.

Politicians often target different messages at different audiences. Are you able to produce any such “opposing” views and public statements which were contemporaneous with the writings? Since RP admits to authoring some of the material in the newsletters, can you point to any contemporaneous writings *there* which are of the entirely different, benign character you describe? If so, it would obviously strengthen the case for multiple authorship. If RP has always been a champion of minority rights, and absolutely abhorred racism, even while this garbage was appearing under his name, surely this would have been at least *occasionally* reflected in his own writings in the newsletter, wouldn’t it?

Why is it reasonable to suppose that Dr. Paul is a closet racist/bigot when he’s very open about things that get him labeled a “traitor” and “terrorist sympathizer” ?

Because for decades he published a newsletter full of racist/bigoted material, “The Ron Paul Political Report,” which had no other identifiable contributors, was written in the first person, was generally understood and represented to reflect his views, and contained personal remarks that only make sense if he were the one writing them. Also because he has in the past offered a different explanation, not that the remarks were authored by someone else, but that “they were taken out of context.” And also because it is unreasonable to suppose that RP, who clearly has deep and abiding interest in politics closely, would have no interest in, or knowledge of, the content of his own (and only) political publication.

You’re assuming he knows who the author is in each case. He was not the editor of the newsletter and may not have even read the statements in question. That’s an open question, and I’d be interested to know the answer. But it doesn’t change my judgement that Ron Paul is not a closet racist.

OK, then let’s start small. RP claims that *none* of the offensive items was written by him. Can he produce a person who credibly admits to writing even *one* of them? I mean, this was a small-time, low-budget operation. The newsletters were typewritten. It is not like an anonymous staff of hundreds produced these things. How many people could have been writing in his newsletter at any time – two? three? six? His claim is apparently not just “I didn’t write it and I never saw it” but “I have no idea whatsoever who might have been writing any of these things for a decade or more”. How is that even remotely credible? It is stonewalling, pure and simple.

The more people there were, the more likely, it seems to me, that a masthead would have listed an editor, contributors, or at least acknowledged someone other than RP as being involved. That is certainly the pattern of the overwhelming majority of publications. An 8-page publication, produced regularly for over a decade, which cites no editor and acknowledges no other contributors (when we are asked to believe that a substantial fraction of its content was being written by others) would in fact be entirely unique in my experience. Even from Paul’s perspective, trying to sustain the cadre of a political movement, wouldn’t it be advantageous to make the movement look bigger and more impressive than a 1-man operation, if it wasn’t? The only reason not to acknowledge others would be if there were no others.

LagunaDave on January 10, 2008 at 6:53 AM

Ace has a few simple questions:

Can anyone explain this to me? Why have so many otherwise sane-seeming people gone completely bugfuck crazy over this flake?

I wasn’t just tossing a cheap joke into the last post. Seriously, honestly: Let us put aside indelicate questions about Ron Paul’s possible anti-semitism, racism, etc. Just let’s leave that be for a moment.

Can Ron Paul’s defenders please justify voting for a man who appears, based on the evidence, to be mentally unstable and haunted by a livable and low-grade, but quite real, case of paranoid schizophrenia?

If Art Bell told you he really had some great ideas about cutting the federal bureaucracy and returning to “constitutional governance,” would you guys all flock to him, too?

I don’t know about you all, but “not google-eyed batshit crazy” is one of my higher-priority qualifications for a president. Yes, I realize it’s not actually explicitly listed as a qualification in the Constitution, but I’m comfortable unconstitutionally imposing this test on a would-be leader nevertheless.

Blimps and Nazis and maniacs and money that tracks you and a secret cabal of all-controlling international bankers. If this weren’t all too real, it might make for a neat pulp fiction story. Maybe Doc Savage and the Trilateralists of Terror.

Money that spies on you. Money. That spies on you.

I realize if someone is capable of caring for themselves, we don’t usually call them insane. We call them “eccentric.” But honestly, if you guys heard a homeless dude spouting this sort of over-the-moon blather would you say, “Oh yeah, Stinky Ted here makes some good points about fiat money and the fed’s plan to track my every movement with their newfangled SpyBacks” or would you just avert your eyes and hope he doesn’t eat somebody someday?

Why are such florid hallucinations suddenly sensible when they come from Ron — ahem, Doctor — Paul?

Is any of this humbuggery any less crazy than UFOs or Bigfoot or Atlantis? What’s the limit here? What level of psychological, ahem, “quirks” are you willing to tolerate?

LagunaDave on January 10, 2008 at 7:19 AM