No, this isn’t another post about the newsletters, which Politico to their credit has covered and does mention in this piece. Instead, Ginger Gibson identifies six political statements from Paul over the years that she believes Paul will need to explain to maintain his credibility in this race:
The storyline dogging Ron Paul as his numbers continue to rise in Iowa — the racist content in newsletters published in the 1990s under his name — poses a significant impediment to his campaign’s momentum.
But that’s not his only problem.
Even as he disavows the newsletters — the Texas congressman asserts he didn’t write them and never even read them — Paul’s got a collection of other statements that he’ll likely need to explain in greater detail if he expects to capture the Republican Party nomination.
I’ll bullet-point the statements Gibson identifies:
- The “disaster” of Ronald Reagan’s conservative agenda
- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are unconstitutional
- American drug laws are designed to fund rogue governments, CIA programs
- U.S. foreign policy “significantly contributed” to 9/11 attacks
- Returning white supremacist donation is “pandering”
- The Civil Rights Act “violated the Constitution”
Before I address the statements themselves, I’ll question the premise of the article itself. When has Ron Paul ever had to give a rational explanation to anything he’s done in the past to maintain his base of support?
I found a letter from Ron Paul on line (PDF).
It is the raving of a madman!
He talks/rants about cash with new features built into it and IRS agents with their shark-dead eyes and AK-47s.
He tries to build paranoia about using/having our paper money.
It is here:
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/11/12/Solicitation2.pdf
He signed this puppy!
It is all on him!
He’s a NUT!
Nan, I’ve been going toe to toe with the Ronulans on another site and you would not believe how much nuttier than even RP they are.
They are very much like liberals. In fact, they are a type of liberal.
They are even more narcissistic than progressives and that also goes for inablility to face reality. That is REALLY saying something.
Like the obama drones, they project all their fantasies onto Ron. They don’t seem to understand that he would be a president, and not a king. So they really do believe he’ll magically roll back government to the size and strength it had in the early 1800’s. Still others seem to think he’ll eliminate government altogether.
Ron Paul is the crazy uncle you hide in the basement. And he is just flat out too old to stand up to that grueling job!
Paul has already spoken on all of the above items at length – I think it’s pretty obvious that Gibson isn’t so much looking for an explanation (that’s already available) as laying out a plan of attack on his most unpopular views. I think the only bullet point he might walk back if pressed on it today would be #3; I expect he had read the articles published by Gary Webb on this topic and the official investigation on the matter had not yet come out (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_Contras_cocaine_trafficking_in_the_US for an overview of the history).
For the rest,
– an expansion on bullet point one can be found in Paul’s farewell address to Congress (when he quit in 1984).
– number two doesn’t require much explanation. He believes in a limited government of enumerated powers. As a followup of course it should be noted that he doesn’t plan to immediately abolish these programs, but to try to phase them out.
– number four, ‘contributed to’ does not imply moral guilt or blame. The expanded explanation for this claim can be found in Michael Scheuer’s book ‘Imperial Hubris’, or Chalmers Johnson’s ‘Blowback’. You might disagree with the thesis, but it’s not some inexplicable claim out of the blue – it’s been expounded on at great length.
– number five, there’s video out there of him defending this decision on youtube. I’m not sure I agree, but you can’t say he hasn’t explained his position.
– number 6, yes – this was Goldwater’s position also. States’ rights, the Tenth Amendment and so on. As with #2, this does not imply that repealing the civil rights act is on his agenda.
I think it’s telling that Gibson has to go back to the 1980s, and Paul’s Libertarian run, to come up with things she thinks he should defend now. I guess asking him to explain his current platform wouldn’t work out so well for her. You could of course play a similar game with Gingrich and ask him to explain his previous support for legalizing marijuana or for letting a few terrorist attacks get through (just to remind us there’s a war on).
@Nan G, sure which I could read the “copied from” in the right spine margin on pg 6. According to a Reuters article, here’s the way the letter got to the press:
The only thing I can read in the margin of pg 6 is:
All said, it’s got the hype of Ron Paul’s message. Could have been penned by someone else and a rubber stamp signature.. in which case he’d be likely to deny writing that as well.
I’m not so worried about Ron Paul. Glad his fiscal rhetoric resonates, but the man is a walking grenade, and he never minds pulling his own pin on multiple intervals.
Mata, he’s a walking derranged grenade.
(this is where the Ronulans pipe in that a man who wants to adhere to the Constitution must be derranged)
Ron Paul isn’t a derranged nut?
Exhibit A- New World Order
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul79.html
Exhibit B- Truther statements
http://www.examiner.com/la-county-libertarian-in-los-angeles/ron-paul-on-9-11-conspiracies-chronological-order
@Nan G: That looks like Paul, all right. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if someone had showed me the text with all references to his name scrubbed, and I’d thought about it for a minute, I could have identified it as his. The anti-government paranoia is not specific to him but the fixation on money and its forms pretty much is.
It’s a remarkable example of the paranoid style in American politics. It looks like something that dates to a time after Ruby Ridge and Waco, when the militia movement was in full swing. This is how Paul built a national fundraising network that allowed him to return to Congress in 1996.
The claims about changing the color of money and/or embedding RFID tags, etc., are not complete fabrication. The Treasury did look into making our money more European-looking and/or embedding tags and other anti-counterfeiting measures. But people didn’t like the former and the latter proved technically infeasible. The rest is some first-class fearmongering.
I think this is actually much more damaging than the stuff Gibson comes up with (which as I said above is more or less just a demand that he repeat stuff he’s said before). I don’t personally hold it against Paul that he courted the far right – I was a member of his target audience at the time, though for whatever reason I never actually heard of his newsletter back then. But this kind of thing doesn’t go over well with the mainstream. If you look at today’s politicians, by way of analogy, there are almost none who publicly court the Birther movement, even though that’s like 25% of Republicans.
@Hard Right: Having read the link ‘Truther statements’, I see that Paul didn’t make any. He apparently feels that the official report on 9/11 covered up incompetence of some sort, which doesn’t qualify as a Truther position.
The other link is likewise unremarkable, at least to me. I recommend you just borrow Nan G’s link above – that’s way farther around the bend than the weaksauce stuff you came up with.
Ron Paul
OP
But that tells us tons more than we need to know about whether he could be President of the USA, doesn’t it.
It tells us that Ron Paul can allow things to go on in his name but cannot control them (or SAYS he cannot).
It tell us Ron Paul uses the “I’m too busy” excuse for allowing gross negligence to go on in his name!
It tells us Ron Paul cannot even run a small business, much less anything more.
His ”investments,” tells us he is betting on the destruction of the USA, not its success.
His conspiracy rants about 9-11 being ”our fault” leaves informed people wondering who he blames for: the London tube bombings,
the Bali night club bombing,
the Madrid train bombing,
the Beslan school shooting.
No, it is not ”our fault.”
Not even partly.
@<a Paul supporter thinks he's not a nut or a Truther. Big shock.
Yeah, I mean someone who thinks New World Order is code for one world government rule under the U.N. is completely sane. Yes, pointing out the fact that he thinks that is weak. Silly me.
As for those who think he is a patriot, a patriot doesn't go onto Iranian tv to bash America.
His truther quotes are also quite damning. BBart responded almost exactly like many of the other RP supporters did.
It's all no big deal. It's not proof. Blah, blah, blah…
Ron Paul endorses Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader. They both hate America, are anti-semitic, and hate Israel. The RP drones claimed it was a protest endorsement. Riiiight.
He just happens to endorse two people who are the polar opposite of what he claims to stand for. Yet he refuses to endorse McCain. No, he endorsed them because their views are similar to his .
http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2011/12/21/ron_paul_hates_republicans_and_everything_they_stand_for/
Ex RP aide said he knew what was in his newsletters
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/12/20/ex-ron-paul-aide-disputes-paul
A 1995 interview of RP that mentions the newsletters
http://race42012.com/2011/12/22/dr-ron-paul-1995-interview/
RP on Israel
http://www.therightscoop.com/flashback-ron-paul-defends-hamas-says-israeli-blockade-act-of-war/
Iran says it wil wipe Israel off the map, RP claims it was a mistranslation. But RP is really an Israel supporter…riiiiight.
Here’s something not too many have bothered to look into.
Mahv: A Farsi word, meaning “wiped off.”
The editor of the story that quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Israel (actually ”the Zionist entity”) would be wiped off the map responded to this letter:
RESPONSE:
We actually had access to this speech, and heard the president’s words verbatim from our own TV footage. We stand behind our translation. In this case, he used the word “mahv,” which in Farsi means “wiped off”: Editor
@Nan G: ‘Here’s something not too many have bothered to look into.’
Actually, plenty of people have looked into it. Your attempt to affirm the ‘wipe off the map’ translation by looking at one word is quite peculiar, since the rest of the phrase is similarly available:
‘een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods’ – the regime occupying Jerusalem (interesting that ‘regime’/rezhim-e is apparently an English loan-word)
‘bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad’ must be wiped from the page(s) of time
That’s some pretty aggressive regime-change talk (lefty Juan Cole tries to soften it with his own mistranslation, claiming that it is a wish for the regime to simply ‘vanish’… ha ha). But it’s neither a call for genocide nor a call for the destruction of the state of Israel, any more than our own calls for regime change in Iran are a call for the destruction of Iran.
@Hard Right: I don’t doubt that Paul had a general idea of the content of the newsletters. As for Dondero’s claim that he read every line, that sounds like an exaggeration from a disgruntled ex-employee (was Dondero there watching him every day?).
The 1995 interview sounds like Paul is discussing his other, less controversial newsletter – the investment one.
Blockades generally are an act of war, but of course this presupposes that Palestine is an independent state. I don’t agree with Paul on that one.
Looks like I have to re-classify Bbart as a paul drone. He uses RP talking points almost line for line.
Anyone with a grip on reality doesn’t buy RP’s claims about him not knowing what was in the newsletters. In fact, he has changed his story several times. Iran wants Israel obliterated and the quote proves it despite your attempts to spin it otherwise.
It’s unbelievable that otherwise sane and rational people want to pretend that RP actually means any of the pro-America statements he makes and that he isn’t a raving loon. Bbart, I’m finding your attempted spin rather pathetic.