The Ron Paul Newsletters - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
The Ron Paul Newsletters
by

Yesterday, during a discussion on Ron Paul with Sean Hannity on the latter’s radio show, Hannity brought up with me the impossible-to-get around subject of the infamous Ron Paul Newsletters.

As Hannity quite correctly pointed out, with the other GOP candidates having received the political equivalent of an anal exam, somehow Ron Paul has escaped notice.

No more.

While I think the lack of attention has been due to the fact that many did not take him seriously, a justifiable complaint from his supporters, I have tried to do just that in this space. And in doing so launched a fusillade of angry response from Paul supporters that, peculiarly, never seems forthcoming when I criticize Gingrich/Romney/Perry/Huntsman etc etc.

But as we head into this last debate of the season, Hannity has raised an excellent point. The higher Ron Paul goes, as with his fellow candidates who have floated to the top previously, the scrutiny will intensify. And Ron Paul will have to seriously answer.

To refresh, Reason magazine came out with a detailed piece on the Paul newsletters back in 2008. The piece was written by reporters Julian Sanchez and David Weigel.

The article was as disturbing as it was alarming.

Here, according to Reason, was a potential Republican nominee for president who had for whatever rationale acquiesced to having a newsletter sent out under his name that used the most vile of racist language. To wit, this from the May 22nd Dallas Morning News in 1996:

Dr. Ron Paul, a Republican congressional candidate from Texas, wrote in his political newsletter in 1992 that 95 percent of the black men in Washington, D.C., are “semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

And this, from the Houston Chronicle on May 23, 1996:

…we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.

And this from the Austin American-Statesman, also on May 23, 1996:

Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions.

Look.

One can, unfortunately, go on and on and on here with this story and various appalling quotes.

But since we are busy doing political proctology exams on all these candidates, and Congressman Paul has mostly escaped the examination, it’s past time for discussion and explanations. Were Ron Paul the GOP nominee the liberal media would pounce within micro seconds, so better that the questions come here and from Sean Hannity and Mark Levin and others on the conservative side.

It has to be said there is a disturbing pattern that appears with the Paul proctology. Quite aside from his decidedly McGovernite foreign policy pronouncements (“Come Home America” as McGovern used to say) there are other serious signs of leftism in the Ron Paul world view. Whether it’s the appalling statements on race (and there are more) made either by Paul himself or someone on Paul’s newsletter writing team in his behalf and under his name — this has nothing whatsoever to do with conservatism. This isn’t Ronald Reagan much less Edmund Burke. This is sheer progressivism — the domestic version of progressive sentiments that match like a glove with a McGovernite foreign policy.

Mark Levin has taken all kinds of heat for exposing this business over the last few months. The sheer nuttiness of the Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant/James Madison and the Founding Fathers never intervened anywhere stuff, the latter flatly untrue. Not to mention the and-oh-by-the-way-pay-no-attention-to-all that-anti-Semitic-stuff that trails the Paul candidacy like the little cloud of dirt that used to follow the Peanuts cartoon character Pigpen around. 

Pigpen, as a matter of fact, once said of all the dirt following him around: “Being dirty is a practical matter…I’m never bothered by girls or mosquitos.”

In the world of presidential politics, a political version of this has been following Ron Paul around for years, which is why he was never bothered by serious seekers of Republican presidents or the media.

Yesterday, Sean Hannity took Ron Paul seriously — and respectfully so, just as he has done with all the other candidates. Mark Levin has been seriously examining this situation for a long time.

Now…as Iowa approaches and Ron Paul rises in the polls…so will others.

Stay tuned.

Jeffrey Lord
Follow Their Stories:
View More
Jeffrey Lord, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is a former aide to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. An author and former CNN commentator, he writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com. His new book, Swamp Wars: Donald Trump and The New American Populism vs. The Old Order, is now out from Bombardier Books.
Sign up to receive our latest updates! Register


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Be a Free Market Loving Patriot. Subscribe Today!