The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
For those of you who have been disconnected from the Internet for a few days in honor of the birth of Christ, or because your wife threatened to divorce you if you didn't get down there and spend some time with Mad Cousin Bob, who last year had his name legally changed to Sequoia--just once a year, can't you make a bit of an effort with my family!--the big scandale de la semaine is the release of the racist-Ron-Paul newsletters, which surely did reveal the man to be lacking in the delicate sensibility required to run for the highest office in America these days.
The update, again for those of you who've had the Internet morphine drip forcibly yanked out of your veins, is this statement from his former staffer, Eric Dondero, which has such a ring of truthiness that I don't think anyone need bother to fact-check it. Some choice extracts:
Is Ron Paul a homophobe? Well, yes and no. He is not all bigoted towards homosexuals. He supports their rights to do whatever they please in their private lives. He is however, personally uncomfortable around homosexuals, no different from a lot of older folks of his era.
There were two incidents that I will cite, for the record. One that involved me directly, and another that involved another congressional staffer or two.
(I am revealing this for the very first time, and I’m sure Jim Peron will be quite surprised to learn this.)
In 1988, Ron had a hardcore Libertarian supporter, Jim Peron, Owner of Laissez Faire Books in San Francisco. Jim set up a magnificent 3-day campaign swing for us in the SF Bay Area. Jim was what you would call very openly Gay. But Ron thought the world of him. For 3 days we had a great time trouncing from one campaign event to another with Jim’s Gay lover. The atmosphere was simply jovial between the four of us. (As an aside we also met former Cong. Pete McCloskey during this campaign trip.) We used Jim’s home/office as a “base.” Ron pulled me aside the first time we went there, and specifically instructed me to find an excuse to excuse him to a local fast food restaurant so that he could use the bathroom. He told me very clearly, that although he liked Jim, he did not wish to use his bathroom facilities. I chided him a bit, but he sternly reacted, as he often did to me, Eric, just do what I say. Perhaps “sternly” is an understatement. Ron looked at me directly, and with a very angry look in his eye, and shouted under his breath: “Just do what I say NOW.”
Of course, this will come as no surprise to fans of Bruno. (Viewer discretion very mildly advised; if you made it through the last paragraph, the video probably won't offend you any more than that description did.)
Amusement aside, Dondero's concluding remarks are the important ones:
If you take anything from this lengthy statement, I would hope that it is this final story about the Afghanistan vote, that the liberal media chooses to completely ignore, because it doesn’t fit their template, is what you will report.
If Ron Paul should be slammed for anything, it’s not some silly remarks he’s made in the past in his Newsletters. It’s over his simply outrageously horrendous views on foreign policy, Israel, and national security for the United States. His near No vote on Afghanistan. That is the big scandal. And that is what should be given 100 times more attention from the liberal media, than this Newsletter deal.
Agreed.
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Comments :
Dec '10
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
News flash: Seventy year-old East Texan males are uncomfortable around flamboyantly gay men.
Aside: Does anyone here doubt that Ron Paul can muster more flamboyantly gay supporters than the rest of the GOP Presidential field combined?
In fact, I thought his friendliness to gay rights was supposed to be the fly in the ointment when it comes to his electability in the Republican primary. Not that he wasn't friendly enough to gay people.
May '10
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
"Bruno" seems a little hard-core for that anecdote. I got more of a Caddyshack-for-the-New-Millenium vibe with Ted Knight playing Ron Paul.
Mar '11
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Umm...if I had a newsletter going out in my name, and I was a public figure, I think I'd read it once in a while, out of curiosity if nothing else. It could be embarrassing if someone were to read it and ask me a question about what it said.
If Ron Paul can't run a newsletter with any more alacrity than that, why should anyone believe he could run the White House?
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Foul!
In 1988 the AIDS activists were still telling us that every last one of us was going to be wiped out by the infectious disease (unless we sent them money).
I think the story teller should not have left that out of the narrative.
Even if he was uncomfortable around gays, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.
I agree with the author that his foreign policy gives the pause.
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Tommy De Seno: Foul!
In 1988 the AIDS activists were still telling us that every last one of us was going to be wiped out by the infectious disease (unless we sent them money).
I think the story teller should not have left that out of the narrative.
Even if he was uncomfortable around gays, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.
I agree with the author that his foreign policy gives the pause. · Dec 27 at 6:48am
I'm about to leave a comment about another portion of this disgruntled ex-staffer's big reveal but I have to agree with Tommy here. I was around in the 80s. It's really not right to equate what we know about public health threats now with what we didn't know then.
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
As for this:
I was working at a great libertarian outfit at the time of 9/11 and going through that day was incredibly alienating. And not just because I'm pretty sure we were the only organization in America that just kept working as if nothing had happened. Many conversations that day were all about how this better not mean we go to war. There was very little empathy for the victims. It was ... odd.
I still hope for a more restrained foreign policy but it's odd we don't have one that acknowledges the threats that face us.
Sep '10
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Oh, man, very glad I wasn't there. It was bad enough being surrounded by leftists who were enthralled but emotionally removed at the same time. ... Kind of makes you wonder if there's not a bit of cowardice walking down Paul's hard line.
Sep '10
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Totally agree, Percival.
It's irrelevant that the story's about gay people. That Paul can smile deceitfully for day and then allow his rather bizarre views—this guy's a doctor and he's worried about bathroom facilities?!?!!—to change his personality on a dime, again deceitfully, tells me that something rather despicable animates this man. Do we really want another ideologue as president? He's accomplished nothing of note, except for getting reelected, for the past three decades. ... Some gay activists in the 1980s were definitely self-absorbedly alarmist (I never believed AIDS would hit much harder than it did in the larger culture). But how does that mitigate against Paul's backwardness?
Percival: Umm...if I had a newsletter going out in my name, and I was a public figure, I think I'd read it once in a while, out of curiosity if nothing else. It could be embarrassing if someone were to read it and ask me a question about what it said.
If Ron Paul can't run a newsletter with any more alacrity than that, why should anyone believe he could run the White House? · Dec 27 at 6:12am
Dec '10
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
He thought 9/11 might be used as a precursor to invade Iraq? Geez. Get this conspiracy monger off the airwaves.
Edited on Dec 27, 2011 at 8:29amJan '11
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
HIs newsletters are a big deal, sorry. Politically they are actually a much, much bigger deal than the vote on Afghanistan. As a single decision, I agree, the Afghan vote is huge. But the potential for those newsletters to solidify the notion that Republicans are just a bunch of racists and hateful bastards among independents is very, very problematic, to say nothing of the insight to the repulsive character that would have to be behind those letters. I happen to believe that the question of character trumps specific decisions as it is what underlies every single choice. What those newsletters tell us about Paul is very, very important.
Jan '11
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Karl, do you believe, as Ron Paul seems to, or seemed to, that the US was involved in perpetrating an attack on it's own citizens and own Department of Defense in order to justify going to two wars?
Mar '11
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Let's try rephrasing the point in this manner.
Let us grant every conspiracy theory that Ron Paul has ever engaged in is true. Let's suppose that he's exactly correct and that the CIA was behind 9/11 in order to generate a reason for the Bush administration to invade Iraq.
In fact, let's go a step further. Since he hangs out with Alex Jones on occasion, let's suppose that Ron is right that the Trilateral Commission was really behind the whole thing and there is an international conspiracy bent on seizing your liberty and handing it over to Bohemian Grove.
Help me to understand why, again, is it the next rational step--if we believe all of this--to elect Ron Paul as the President?
Jan '11
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Ron Paul is a sort of joke - the deadly serious kind.
Obama didn't know what the Rev. Wright was preaching, and Paul didn't know what was written in his name in his own newsletter. And yet, people support and vote for the likes of these two. Libertarians, so-to-speak, see the Obama error, but take no notice of Paul's. It's a selectively blinkered perspective, seeing only what the blinders allow, and what one prefers, to be seen.
I find myself these days thinking of the Santayana admonition and wondering whether history has ever had any meaning for future generations.
Jan '11
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
December headlines:
"Bombs Go Off in Baghdad"
"Maliki Government Issues Arrest Warrant for Iraqi Vice President"
"Iraq Veers Toward Civil War"
Nine years. Over four thousand dead. Thirty thousand injured. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a war that Ron Paul, almost uniquely among Republican office-holders, opposed.
So let's talk about newsletters?
No, I think not.
I want acknowledgments that the Iraq War was a mistake which accomplished nothing. I want apologies from those who promoted it, defended it and supported it. You were wrong. Horrendously wrong. Admit it.
Ron Paul was right.
Jan '11
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Freesmith:
I want acknowledgments that the Iraq War was a mistake which accomplished nothing. I want apologies from those who promoted it, defended it and supported it. You were wrong. Horrendously wrong. Admit it.
Which time? The one that lasted from January through February of 1991? Or the most recent one where the United States was enforcing the cease-fire conditions of that first war?
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Freesmith: December headlines:
"Bombs Go Off in Baghdad"
"Maliki Government Issues Arrest Warrant for Iraqi Vice President"
"Iraq Veers Toward Civil War"
Nine years. Over four thousand dead. Thirty thousand injured. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a war that Ron Paul, almost uniquely among Republican office-holders, opposed.
So let's talk about newsletters?
No, I think not.
I want acknowledgments that the Iraq War was a mistake which accomplished nothing. I want apologies from those who promoted it, defended it and supported it. You were wrong. Horrendously wrong. Admit it.
Ron Paul was right. · Dec 27 at 9:43am
Let me see now. Barack Obama pulls all of the American troops out of Iraq against the advice of our military. The Shiite prime minister then turns on his Sunni allies, and it looks as if a civil war may ignite, as predicted by those who warned against pulling out prematurely. And this proves that it was a mistake to invade Iraq in the first place?
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.: As for this:
I was working at a great libertarian outfit at the time of 9/11 and going through that day was incredibly alienating. And not just because I'm pretty sure we were the only organization in America that just kept working as if nothing had happened. Many conversations that day were all about how this better not mean we go to war. There was very little empathy for the victims. It was ... odd. · Dec 27 at 6:58am
This is very telling.
Jan '11
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
Freesmith, you and other Paul supporters that are willing to turn a blind eye to Paul's trafficking in looney conspiracy theories, close association with repugnant white supremacists and ant-semites, and bizarre and fantastic ideas about the nature of world and how we should respond to threats, are blind and need your moral compass recalibrated. There is no place in a healthy society for the disgusting brand of crazy Uncle Paul is selling.
Edited on Dec 27, 2011 at 10:16amJan '11
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
That's not accurate. There is a time and place for everything and for some people. As for Ron Paul: man does have his warts, to be sure. But I do find his brand of saying the important first principle things, unabashedly and without any fear of losing popular support, rather refreshing [no other GOP candidate sticks their neck out like Paul does] . So much so that I actually favor him as a candidate in this wart-filled field. I find this very healthy and I consider myself well-informed and fairly well educated, so, I think you have some further explaining to do regarding your provocative comment.
Edited on Dec 27, 2011 at 10:25amDec '10
Re: The Ron Paul Newsletter Update
BThompson: Freesmith, you and other Paul supporters that are willing to turn a blind eye to Paul's trafficking in looney conspiracy theories, close association with repugnant white supremacists and ant-semites, and bizarre and fantastic ideas about the nature of world and how we should respond to threats, are blind and need your moral compass recalibrated. There is no place in a healthy society for the disgusting brand of crazy Uncle Paul is selling. · Dec 27 at 10:14am
Edited on Dec 27 at 10:16 am
CoC? If so, I pardon BThompson, as I am secure in the calibration of my moral compass.
As for the 'when did you stop beating your wife' question about whether or not Rep. Paul thinks 9/11 was an inside job, he has said multiple times that he doesn't believe any such thing.
He did believe-- and does believe-- that the U.S. government would use 9/11 as an excuse to eventually invade Iraq. This is, in case you hadn't noticed, precisely what happened.
You can believe the Iraq occupation was a good idea and still acknowledge that this is obviously true.