Gartref
19-01-2008, 04:41
Like many of you, there's things that Ron Paul stands for that I like a lot. Reducing the size of government and fiscal responsibility being chief among them. I also admired his criticism of Bush, the Iraq debacle and the constitutional issues these relate to.
I was, however, shocked when I started seeing very racist & homophobic excerpts from Ron Paul's newsletters from the last few decades. At first I thought it was a smear campaign. Then I found out that, yes, those were all true quotes.
I was somewhat relieved to find out that Ron Paul was not only very sorry for those articles but that, in fact, he did not write them. He claims they were ghost-written for him and that he had little to do with the newsletters even though they bore his name and the editorials were supposedly written by him.
I was only somewhat relieved, though. To allow over 15 years of racist comments in your name to continue with no oversite, is a little hard to believe. If I do choose to believe it, though, it certainly implies that Ron Paul is an incredibly reckless, thoughtless and foolish person. This just didn't square with my perception of him though.
So over the last few days I have dug a little deeper and found some things that really confused me at first.
Back in 1996 Ron Paul was facing a tough election in Texas. His oponent had stumbled onto the newsletters and made them an issue. Here is where I got confused. Ron Paul didn't deny he wrote those comments. He actually defended them. His only responses were that these quotes were taken out of context and that you had to read the whole article.
Huh what? Why not disavow them??? Ron had a thousand opportunities in that contentious 96 race to disavow those quotes. He never did.
So... when did Ron finally start saying that those comments were not his and he was very sorry they appeared under his name? It was a 2001 issue of Texas Monthly. I provide here a link to the article:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/2001-10-01/feature7-1.php
This article is a glowing piece of praise for Ron Paul and provides him the chance to break the story that he didn't actually write those terrible things. Here are the relevent quotations:
"I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren't really written by me. It wasn't my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around."
"They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn't come from me directly, but they [campaign aides] said that's too confusing. 'It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.'"
Well. There you have it. I was pretty turned off by Ron Paul at this point because I knew he was a liar. He either lied a hundred times in 1996 when he defended those words as his own or he's lied a 1000 times since 2001 when he claims those words were not his.
But this isn't really why I'm posting this thread. For those who recognize my name, you have seen very few threads started by me in the last year or so. Most of my responses are also confined to meaningless dumbass remarks that amuse myself and very few others.
No the reason I am posting this thread today is because I realized something just about an hour ago. The timing of the Texas Monthly article where Ron Paul first claims that his newsletters were not written by him appeared in OCTOBER of 2001. That's less than a month after 9/11.
In my own mind, this seems like too big of a coincidence. I can see the wheels turning in his mind. Finally he has a galvanizing issue to run with on a national level that perfectly meshes with his long held foreign policy beliefs. He knows, however, that he could never run a national campaign with those newsletter quotes hanging over his head.
You may be able to run as a racist in rural Texas, but not on a national stage. He had to do something about it. His old "quote out of context" crap wouldn't hold water anymore. The only way out was to claim he didn't write them. It made him look careless and stupid for allowing his name for so long to be associated with those comments, but it was better than actually having to defend them. In fact, he could then get on the bandwagon and villify those comments like everyone else.
So... a quick call to Texas Monthly and a glowing puff piece turns into a way out. And I mean a QUICK call too. I don't know what the deadline is for a monthly publication, but if somethings going into the October issue, it had better be ready by the third week of September. This means that old Ron had his plans in place while the towers were still smoldering.
So what do you think? Am I reading too much into the timing of the Texas Monthly article? Do you actually believe Ron Paul when he says that he didn't write those newsletters that bore his name for over 15 years? Do you belive he never actually even read them?
Or do you believe like I do that Ron Paul watched the towers fall and knew he had a chance to make a political gain on a national stage if only he could figure out a way to shed his racist rants of the past.
Let me know.
I was, however, shocked when I started seeing very racist & homophobic excerpts from Ron Paul's newsletters from the last few decades. At first I thought it was a smear campaign. Then I found out that, yes, those were all true quotes.
I was somewhat relieved to find out that Ron Paul was not only very sorry for those articles but that, in fact, he did not write them. He claims they were ghost-written for him and that he had little to do with the newsletters even though they bore his name and the editorials were supposedly written by him.
I was only somewhat relieved, though. To allow over 15 years of racist comments in your name to continue with no oversite, is a little hard to believe. If I do choose to believe it, though, it certainly implies that Ron Paul is an incredibly reckless, thoughtless and foolish person. This just didn't square with my perception of him though.
So over the last few days I have dug a little deeper and found some things that really confused me at first.
Back in 1996 Ron Paul was facing a tough election in Texas. His oponent had stumbled onto the newsletters and made them an issue. Here is where I got confused. Ron Paul didn't deny he wrote those comments. He actually defended them. His only responses were that these quotes were taken out of context and that you had to read the whole article.
Huh what? Why not disavow them??? Ron had a thousand opportunities in that contentious 96 race to disavow those quotes. He never did.
So... when did Ron finally start saying that those comments were not his and he was very sorry they appeared under his name? It was a 2001 issue of Texas Monthly. I provide here a link to the article:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/2001-10-01/feature7-1.php
This article is a glowing piece of praise for Ron Paul and provides him the chance to break the story that he didn't actually write those terrible things. Here are the relevent quotations:
"I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren't really written by me. It wasn't my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around."
"They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn't come from me directly, but they [campaign aides] said that's too confusing. 'It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.'"
Well. There you have it. I was pretty turned off by Ron Paul at this point because I knew he was a liar. He either lied a hundred times in 1996 when he defended those words as his own or he's lied a 1000 times since 2001 when he claims those words were not his.
But this isn't really why I'm posting this thread. For those who recognize my name, you have seen very few threads started by me in the last year or so. Most of my responses are also confined to meaningless dumbass remarks that amuse myself and very few others.
No the reason I am posting this thread today is because I realized something just about an hour ago. The timing of the Texas Monthly article where Ron Paul first claims that his newsletters were not written by him appeared in OCTOBER of 2001. That's less than a month after 9/11.
In my own mind, this seems like too big of a coincidence. I can see the wheels turning in his mind. Finally he has a galvanizing issue to run with on a national level that perfectly meshes with his long held foreign policy beliefs. He knows, however, that he could never run a national campaign with those newsletter quotes hanging over his head.
You may be able to run as a racist in rural Texas, but not on a national stage. He had to do something about it. His old "quote out of context" crap wouldn't hold water anymore. The only way out was to claim he didn't write them. It made him look careless and stupid for allowing his name for so long to be associated with those comments, but it was better than actually having to defend them. In fact, he could then get on the bandwagon and villify those comments like everyone else.
So... a quick call to Texas Monthly and a glowing puff piece turns into a way out. And I mean a QUICK call too. I don't know what the deadline is for a monthly publication, but if somethings going into the October issue, it had better be ready by the third week of September. This means that old Ron had his plans in place while the towers were still smoldering.
So what do you think? Am I reading too much into the timing of the Texas Monthly article? Do you actually believe Ron Paul when he says that he didn't write those newsletters that bore his name for over 15 years? Do you belive he never actually even read them?
Or do you believe like I do that Ron Paul watched the towers fall and knew he had a chance to make a political gain on a national stage if only he could figure out a way to shed his racist rants of the past.
Let me know.