Anyone who has kept up with recent presidential campaign politics is aware of the controversy about the Ron Paul news letters from previous decades. They were sent to subscribers and contained numerous offensive, racist, and nutty ideas. The New Republic has links and summaries of them here. I was aware of them during the 2008 election but I bought Paul's excuse that they were written by a ghostwriter and that he had little involvement in them. I still buy that, but a recent revelation (for me at least) has made me reexamine whether that explanation is enough.
Some of the newsletters make it very clear from the way they were written that the author is supposed to sound like Paul. They are written in the first person in a kind of "from the desk of..." style. My impression had been that all of them were written as random unsigned articles under the heading of the Ron Paul Newsletter. The fact that some were written in his voice and that some even bore a signature, makes me question his judgement. Even if he didn't write them, I question why a person would think such words are the sort of thing Paul would endorse. Paul needs to answer to these emails with a fuller explanation.
If he didn't write them, then, to put it bluntly, the media will need a scalp. Whoever did write them needs to be offered up. If he did write them, then he needs to admit it and then get out of the race. Those are the only options. As much as I can't stand her, I think about how much more extreme the response would be against a Michele Bachmann if she had published similar articles under her name. Fairness dictates that Paul must answer for this, no matter how much I appreciate his dissenting views on foreign policy and the war on drugs.
Yes, yes can see why the leftist propaganda media is threatened by Ron Paul.
ReplyDeleteOf course they are, just about every institution held sacred by either party would be threatened by a Paul presidency. But expecting him to have a better answer for those newsletters is something even his supporters should demand. All that is being asked of Paul on this issue is what would be asked of any candidate in his position. I'm disappointed because this is the only instance I can think of where Paul has been less than open. If these were Gingrich's newsletters and he reacted as Paul has, Paul's supporters would be demanding more answers or using it against him.
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