Racist Newsletters Return To Haunt Ron Paul [View all]

[mikekohr]

To recap, back in the 1990s, Ron Paul produced a series of newsletters, all with his name on them, which published a ream of racist and anti-Semitic columns. Among a long list of offensive comments, one notorious column about the LA riots said that, “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.” Another pilloried Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as “Hate Whitey Day.” Paul has always denied writing them and insists he doesn’t know who did. He has expressed regret that the comments were printed.

I think people dig these up when people think that, oh, his economic policies are winning. His foreign policies are winning and his monetary policies are winning. They have to dig these things up…For two decades, Paul has denied knowing who wrote racist comments. Since Paul had six to eight people working under him on the newsletter, why couldn’t he have found out from them? “Possibly, I could,” Paul admitted Tuesday.

But he doesn’t seem to feel the need. “So, yes, it wasn’t good. I didn’t write them and those aren’t my beliefs. So, I sleep well,” the candidate said.

This sordid history would not bear repeating but for the fact that the media love to portray Paul as a truth-telling, antiwar Republican standing up to the “hawkish” conservative establishment. Otherwise, the newsletters, and Paul’s continued failure to name their author, would be mentioned in every story about him, and he would be relegated to the fringe where he belongs.Kirchick has a point. The newsletters appear during every Paul campaign yet they always seem to remain a sideshow.


full article cached at:
http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/2011/12/racist-newsletters-return-to-haunt-ron.html

another good link on this topic:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100250021