WaPo: Associates Say Ron Paul Knew About Racist Newsletters
On the heels of yesterday’s revelation of tawdry racist posts on Ron Paul’s current Campaign for Liberty website, comes this report from the Washington Post: Ron Paul signed off on racist newsletters in the 1990s, associates say. Here’s the meat:
But people close to Paul’s operations said he was deeply involved in the company that produced the newsletters, Ron Paul & Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day.
“It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. . . . He would proof it,’’ said Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul’s company and a supporter of the Texas congressman.
The newsletters point to a rarely seen and somewhat opaque side of Paul, who has surprised the political community by becoming an important factor in the Republican race. The candidate, who has presented himself as a kindly doctor and political truth-teller, declined in a recent debate to release his tax returns, joking that he would be “embarrassed” about his income compared with that of his richer GOP rivals.
And then there’s this:
A person involved in Paul’s businesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid criticizing a former employer, said Paul and his associates decided in the late 1980s to try to increase sales by making the newsletters more provocative. They discussed adding controversial material, including racial statements, to help the business, the person said.
“It was playing on a growing racial tension, economic tension, fear of government,’’ said the person, who supports Paul’s economic policies but is not backing him for president. “I’m not saying Ron believed this stuff. It was good copy. Ron Paul is a shrewd businessman.’’
The articles included racial, anti-Semitic and anti-gay content. They claimed, for example, that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “seduced underage girls and boys’’; they ridiculed black activists by suggesting that New York be named “Zooville” or “Lazyopolis”; and they said the 1992 Los Angeles riots ended “when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.’’ The June 1990 edition of the Ron Paul Political Report included the statement: “Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.”
Good old jovial Ron.
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(All credit to ECM. Just thought it was time to roll it out again.)
arglebarglefarg gets them every time
EVERY other single candidate, including President Obama, has been called a racist for something they have either been RECORDED saying or doing. It’s interesting how in his 30 year political career, this is the ONLY negative topic that the media keeps bringing up time and time again. These 20 year old newsletters that he was accused of writing, which he claims he did not write, is the ONLY negative thing the media and his attackers have been able to dig up.
YOU WANT FAIR & HONEST JOURNALISM??? It turns out that the “most racist” newsletter issued under Ron Paul’s name has a byline that has someone else’s name on it… JAMES B. POWELL!
The New Republic magazine that issued the original attack against Paul a few years ago, has KEPT THIS FACT HIDDEN and is refusing to talk to other media outlets about who exactly penned the newsletter. When they originally released PDF scans of the newsletter in question, THEY INTENTIONALLY LEFT OFF HALF OF THE LAST PAGE WHICH CONTAINED THE BYLINE OF THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR!!! They attributed the article to Paul, knowing full well that he didn’t write it.
Kind of amazing that a local reporter got to the bottom of this in TWO WEEKS time while the entire national mainstream media didn’t in 4 years. They didn’t really try, did they? You might want to ask yourself why.
Another interesting FACT:
Dr. Paul, or anyone for that matter, doesn’t just all of a sudden become a racist for a few months and then stops being a racist. The racist articles in the newsletters in question ran for about four months and then suddenly stopped after this freelance writer was no longer a part of the newsletter team.
If you really care to know the TRUTH, then take the few minutes to watch. Now if all you care about is bashing someone you may not like for purely personal/political reasons, well then…..
The TRUTH about these newsletters & the mainstream media is HERE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1dhyuZdY9c
If you REALLY care to know if he’s a racist, here’s a testament to his true character from an encounter in the 70′s with a black man who Dr. Paul does not even remember:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rv0Z5SNrF4
Dr. Paul’s reaction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rWFvrxeD8c&feature=related
And on racial justice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3EADdr-5AY&feature=related
Ron Paul a racist? I think not.
It was published under his name.
He hasn’t sued the newsletter publisher for improper use of his name.
And in a 1996 interview, he defended them.
Why would he defend them in ’96 if he wasn’t responsible for them? Why wouldn’t he have said, “that wasn’t me, I didn’t know they were being published under my name, it will stop immediately, and I apologize to any who were offended”?
Face it, he published those racist newsletters because he wanted the support of a certain part of the electorate. Now he’s running away from them as fast as he can because they jeopardize his support amongst the rest of the GOP base.
And his bots are still trying to spin his newsletters’ inflammatory material as merely a “marketing strategy.” That spin falls flat, too, when you look at their target market–skinheads, Aryan Nation types, etc.
Look, I don’t know enough to swing one way or another on this newsletter thing. In my opinion if it has your name on it, its yours. Own it. On the other hand I don’t trust any MSM outlet when they cite “anonymous” sources, and seriously not a single one of you would believe this if it was about any one except Paul. In my opinion he needs to own up one way or another to these newsletters since his name was on the front page, but I don’t for a second believe anything that comes from one of WaPo’s anonymous sources. Might as well be getting your news form Politico.
Lemme ask you this: If this was about Baracky, would you believe it?
I think you would.
Lets be honest, WaPo would never do that story, and on the off chance that flying pigs and unicorns parade down Georgia Ave, and Wapo does a story critical to Obama, of course I would believe it. But I wouldn’t believe it about Gingrich, Santorum (who I dislike), or Romney. Why? Because the only reason newspapers use “un named” sources is because the story would lose any credibility if they named them. They aren’t protecting their sources, they are protecting themselves, and the only reason they do those stories is to discredit a candidate they think is a threat to Obama.