My annoyance on this matter has been building for months, so I will go ahead and let loose with an incoherent rant *.
I am extremely liberal…this is why I cannot vote for Ron Paul. He is considered a libertarian, yet to me he seems quite socially conservative (re: abortion, gay rights). His hard-on about dismantling the government kinda creeps me out as well.
Well, it’s a good thing so many “leftists” are willing to overlook all of that and focus on his being against the war, and in favor of legalizing drugs. The thing is, I doubt a lot of them even know what he’s really about **.
I understand that anytime you have a candidate who is pro legalization there will be hordes of stoners coming out of the woodwork in support. But, it is obviously deeper than that, as he is not getting all of that damn money from the stoners.
I went down to my local co-op the other day and a group of people were chatting excitedly about Paul’s campaign. They only know the two fucking things about him! If they knew more, there is no way in hell they would support him. Again these are not left-leaning libertarians acting this way. These are people who are leaving the Kucinich camp in favor of Paul. That makes so little sense it is fucking ridiculous.
Oh, then there’s this whole thing. (listen to the story, or look to the right for the original article.)
*Sorry, I am not feeling well (no idea why I drank that stupid milk). I just had a last-straw sort of moment today, and felt the need to “rant”.
**I know there are probably many people on this board who fit into this category, so please feel free to explain this situation to me. I really hope I am wrong
The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do
not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never
uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.
[…snip…]
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
publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention
to what went out under my name.Checking the documents, I saw no byline attributing any of it to him.
Maybe they think, this year, they can raise a bit more Hell through Paul’s campaign. After all, both campaigns are political gestures, neither will get the nomination, and it’s all moot after the primaries.
They are un-bylined, but according to the stories, it’s his newsletter, and some are written in a way that implies he wrote them (like references to his hometown). Even presuming he didn’t write them, doesn’t it suggest he’s some kind of moron if he let this stuff get published over and over again for a period of years and wasn’t either paying enough attention or didn’t care enough to stop it?
But maybe I’m the wrong one to weigh in here, because I’ve never gotten into what Paul is offering. I’m not opposed to some of the things he says, by any stretch. I just hear people talk about him and wonder if they’re being sold a bill of goods, and between this story, his NAFTA paranoia and some other things, I wonder who he really is.
I’m starting to think his base is just paranoid Internet kooks, with a slew of well-meaning small government types getting hooked because they aren’t seeing this side of him.
Sure. And he’s taking full responsibility for his carelessness, saying that it has burdened him for the past ten years. Rare is the politician who will say he fucked up despite that they all do. That aspect of him makes him sort of the Anti-Bush.
Yes, it is interesting. The person making the claims is Eric Dondero, a longtime Republican with a libertarian bend here and there. One writer from the blog calls bullshit, pointing out that testimony is not documentation. An excerpt:
Eric Dondero Rittburg has made it his personal career to be Ron Paul’s nemesis. He was fired from Paul’s staff. He’s running in the Republican primary against Paul. Friends of mine who “knew him when” can’t believe it took so long to fire him. He presently supports Guiliani and endorsed the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004.
Worst of all, Dondero supports the mass murder of innocent people based on geography. In October, 2005, the late Harry Browne, from his hospital bed, debated Dondero about the War in Iraq. In this interview he accused Bush of being a “being something of a war wimp” for not “bombing the hell out of Fallujah.” He also said he didn’t care what Bush lied about to “get us in there [Iraq].” He accused Bush of letting Jordan, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia off the hook and suggested that they should be attacked if they had any “terrorists” in their countries. With great volume he asserted Iraq “had something to do with it” – “it” being 9/11. And he advocated dropping a nuclear bomb on Mecca.
The level of evidence on Ron Paul’s involvement needs to come from elsewhere – at least for me.
Spin aside, this looks really, really bad for Ron Paul. He’d have us believe that the Ron Paul newsletter went out – for years – without his having any idea that it was a cesspit of racist tinfoil-hattery? I don’t know which is worse – that the newsletter actually reflected his views, or that he allowed it to go out in complete ignorance of the content – but I do know that both are equally damaging to his campaign.
If it went out “for years” and the smear machine was able to find only three or four such articles, then I think calling it a “cesspit of racist tinfoil-hattery” is just playing into their hands. But as the Swift Vets proved, you don’t need much to hurt someone.
At least one thing has emerged, though. It appears that the New Republic is now a bonafide cite, acceptable to some SDMB posters. I never thought I’d live to see that.
He’s not “taking full responsibility” if he doesn’t want to accept the consequences. He allowed that crap to run under his name. He can’t complain that it’s coming back to haunt him now.
I see a number of iffy articles, over a period that stretches from 1978 to 1995, with most of the citations being from the 1990s. See here, for example. And I’m blessed if I know what the objection to the New Republic is in this instance, unless you’re contending that it forged the newsletters.
Honestly, I don’t know why you’re defending the guy. He’s an idiot, to put it bluntly.
Are these articles really the most important thing about Ron Paul, the thing supporters and opponents want to concentrate on to the exclusion of all the other points raised by the OP?
I don’t think he’s complaining at all. He has consistently polled higher among blacks than all the other Republicans. In fact, this whole thing is old news. As he says, he’s been getting the flak from it for ten years. There was even a thread about it here before. Maybe Rittburg himself wrote some of it, and was fired accordingly. I also think it’s wrong to say that Paul “allowed” the articles to run if you mean to imply that he reviewed them first and said, “Let’s print.” It’s hard to “allow” something you don’t know anything about.
On preview, I’m stunned to see him called an “idiot”. While all the other Republicans spoon-feed the same old bullshit promises about “fixing social security” — I mean, talk about taking longer than we thought! — he’s the only one explaining what inflation actually is, what causes it, how to actually stop it, and cites Nobel prize winning economists to back it up.
He’s an idiot for thinking he can run for president and not have baggage like this brought up. He’s an idiot for letting a newsletter go out under his name without bothering to read it – if that’s even the truth and not an absolute lie. I mean, really. You’re a congressman and you let close associates spew all kinds of garbage that goes out under your name, for a period approaching 20 years, and your defense is, “I knew nothing about it”? Uh, why not, pray tell?
Paul is also the only candidate I’ve seen that understands the roots of our problems in the Middle East, he would end US meddling in the affairs of other countries. Which is probably why he proposes getting rid of the CIA, that sort of thing is probably too ingrained in that organization to change them now.
Then you’re ignorant for not knowing that he’s dealt with it for many years. I don’t think the charge of “idiot” holds water when it comes from ignorance.
He never said he never read the publication, just that he never saw the articles in question. You mention 20 years. Over that span of time, he probably missed lots and lots of articles. He was the publisher, not the edior. Should the publisher of the Chicago Reader read every single post at the SDMB? Does any publisher read every word in his or her publication? He was a busy man, a Congressman, and he spent his time reading bills — one of the few that actually reads the bills he votes on.
I’d wager you didn’t like him before you heard about this. You seem determined that he shall be an idiot without giving any thought whatsoever to the facts involved.
Idiocy is believing that a president will actually “fix social security” or “restore trust in the White House” and shit like that.