I don’t like writing about Paul because, frankly, he creeps me out. But he did appear on the Republican debate tonight, rising again like some nightmarish deluded phoenix, so I feel constrained to comment briefly on his interview with Wolf Blitzer, linked earlier by Glenn Reynolds.
I was fascinated that, under questioning by Blitzer, Paul could not remember the names of any of the people who might have composed the many egregious racist and sexist (and wretchedly written) statements on his Ron Paul newsletter during the nineties, which Paul claims not to have written himself. To be blunt, I think he was lying, trying to cover something or someone up, unless he is suffering Alzeheimer’s or some other form of dementia. Even in my most senior moments, I remember perfectly well the people I worked with in the nineties for any significant period of time and I was a busy fellow, if not completely as busy as the Congressman. If anyone does something that might reflect on me (for instance, these days publishing, on Pajamas) I pay special attention.
Now if…. by some remote chance…. I mean very remote… Paul paid no attention to these people actually writing and publishing under his name for years, he is a remarkably slapdash leader. The idea someone like that would be President of the United States is ludicrous.
If I were a libertarian, I would stay as far from him as possible. In fact, I’d do my best to excommunicate him from the movement. And yet, on Fox News tonight, there they were again, the Ronulans, text messaging their post-debate votes for Ron Paul and thrusting their Dear Leader once again to victory. It’s at once absurdly comic and frightening.
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25 Comments
1. Foobarista:Yup – that “I don’t recall” defense doesn’t work unless your name is Clinton.
As for Dr. Moonbat, hopefully he’ll go away soon…
Jan 10, 2008 - 11:18 pm 2. Buddy Larsen:yeh — wot a bad joke — the guy’ll get a hundred million people killed in WW III, just like his heros did with our pre WWII isolationism, which gave us “WWII”.
Jan 11, 2008 - 4:49 am 3. LarryD:Yes, none of the possible interpretations, including Ron Paul’s own, cast him as a credible candidate.
Isolationism used to be a perfectly honorable position; before Perl Harbor. Hasn’t been since, and the 9/11/2001 attack makes it clear that we can’t afford to try that policy again.
Jan 11, 2008 - 6:34 am 4. Kevin:Talk about a dilemma for the supporters of Ron Paul.
Jan 11, 2008 - 7:26 am 5. Barry Dauphin:1)He’s lying about the entire affair. Then how does one really know he is “telling it like it is?”
2)He knew nothing about it. In which case how do you support someone who doesn’t know what happens in his name? Isn’t that an accusation of Bush, being clueless?
Here’s hoping this can be Ron Paul- for the Last Time. As the primaries move forward at a quickening pace, it’s time to wave goodbye to silly season. Paul has provided one useful service, namely to reveal how many self proclaimed libertarians have become nothing more than quasi-religious zealots and the lengths to which they will go to become not merely obnoxious but profoundly obnoxious (with nary a care for the liberties of others).
Extreme libertarianism begets self indulgence and petulance and, most importantly, hostility to any who disagree. This becomes dog-eat-dog “liberty”, where only the most belligerent will feel free. Ironic isn’t it that we need some level of state power in order to preserve liberties. Ron Paul starts to resemble a prettied up Ted Kaczynski (he of the “Freedom Club”) at some point. In Paul’s case, unlike the Unabomber’s, there is a club.
Jan 11, 2008 - 8:06 am 6. Bob:I am neither a Libertarian, a libertarian, or a Paul supporter. But it seems to me that to say he’s not a “credible candidate” (LarryD), or that he’s merely a manifestation of the “silly season” (Barry Dauphin), is to deny reality. The reality is that he has a lot of supporters, no matter how crazy they may be, and is able to raise enough money to stick around. The reality is that he got more votes in Iowa than Giuliani and almost as many as Thompson, and that he got more votes than Thompson in New Hampshire and virtually as many as Giuliani. Yet nobody writes Giuliani off as a crackpot, and Thompson keeps plugging away despite an evident lack of support. Let’s at least be intellectually honest: if you don’t like Paul’s arguments either don’t listen to them or make your own counter-arguments, but don’t say that he shouldn’t be heard.
Jan 11, 2008 - 9:59 am 7. Roger:Er, sorry, Bob… it’s a bit more complicated than that. Paul is either slightly loony, a gross incompetent or a liar – something you cannot ascribe to the other candidates. To wit: last night he pooh-poohed the mighty US Navy for being scared of Iranian motor boats. But most of us remember the USS Cole in 2000 when 17 US sailors were similarly blown up with several dozen more wounded. Paul didn’t seem to recall that or didn’t care or something. And he’s running for President. With all those daffy followers – I’m sorry, but I find him scary.
Jan 11, 2008 - 11:29 am 8. Buddy Larsen:Bob, you’re encroaching on my freedom to say RP shouldn’t be heard. What i think you mean is not that we shouldn’t say it (which BTW i’m not sure we did), but that you should have full freedom to say we shouldn’t say it. Which you do. (wow — i tink i’m going nertz)
Jan 11, 2008 - 11:31 am 9. Charlie (Colorado):Bob, a friend of mine who is a Ron Paul supporter told me, not so long ago, that Ron Paul “couldn’t lie if his life depended on it.”
I haven’t rubbed his nose in this, but I admit to the urge.
That said, if you think having the number of supporters he’s shown makes him a viable candidate, I’d suggest you check the definition of the word “viable”.
Jan 11, 2008 - 11:52 am 10. Mark:Bob, if you excite .1% (which I think you’ll agree is a tiny fraction) of the eligible voters in the United States, you’ve tapped into the resources of 220,000 people. If a significant fraction of those are technologically sophisticated (forget their ability to function in society otherwise) you get a mighty strong presence in this intertube thingy. Hence the perpetually skewed internet polls.
What you don’t get is much in the way of traction with the 99.9% who, when confronted by some really odoriferous statements and views, tend to tune the loon out.
Ron Paul has gotten attention from old media because he’s this cycle’s Republican Freak. (Remember Pat Robertson? How about Pat Buchanan?) The fact that he’s also drawn the support of members of the population who each know at least four words of Klingon and aren’t afraid to use them, just adds spice to the dish. (Or sauce for the goose, as Spock might say.)
Jan 11, 2008 - 1:54 pm 11. Bob:Roger says, “Paul is either slightly loony, a gross incompetent or a liar – something you cannot ascribe to the other candidates.”
Well, the other candidates may not be loony or incompetent, but they ARE politicians — so I can’t agree that they’re not liars.
Jan 11, 2008 - 4:07 pm 12. markus:Having checked out the offending material, it certainly doesn’t sound like the Ron Paul. Or any of the paleoconservative intellectuals like Jared Taylor or James Watson that speak about racial issues from a non-PC point of view. It reads more as if it was ghostwritten by Morton Downey Jr.
But I’m trying to figure out, if Paul is such a marginal figure, unworthy of inclusion in a Fox Debate on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, why is it that THIS story has been judged worthy of extensive coverage? Either he and his followers are marginal figures unworthy of public attention, or they are not. Which is it?
Jan 11, 2008 - 5:57 pm 13. Mark:It’s the Freak Show Factor, markus. Ron Paul was fading as good Republican Freak copy material; this extends his dead-tree value by a good two to three weeks.
His followers are a different matter entirely, though. Ewoks are cute; ewoks with tech skillz and the ability to coordinate considerably less so.
Jan 11, 2008 - 7:14 pm 14. Buddy Larsen:techno skillz and enough dough to keep their Leader technically ‘viable’.
Jan 11, 2008 - 7:44 pm 15. TomTom:Paul is extremely marginal.But he is a candidate and a sitting Congressman, so I applaud Fox for not excluding him.
Jan 11, 2008 - 9:31 pm 16. Stace:But it is McCain and the folks who like him who “creep(s) me out”. He voted against the tax cuts because the rates were cut too much; he gave us McCain-Feingold which IMO is clearly anti-First Amendment, and the McCain-Kennedy “comprehensive” immigration bill; he is holier-than-thou on vigorous interrogation of jihadists who would behead us all. So he’s OK on the Surge, but that is all. The MSM loves him as a “maverick”, the original meaning of which is a wild and crazy horse.
This is extremely insignificant trivia, but the word “maverick” originally referred to the unbranded herd of cattle owned by Sam Maverick on the Texas coast on the 1840’s. To this day, an unbranded calf is sometimes called a maverick.
Jan 12, 2008 - 8:42 am 17. Buddy Larsen:Yep, it’s true. The last time I was there, somewhere in the early 70s, it was as a Hunter Thompson-like reptilicus creature trying to slither out of Mexico thru Eagle Pass with a big jug of reds and them little pink heart-shaped benzedrines.
Jan 12, 2008 - 10:01 am 18. GringoTex:Ron Paul has claimed that someone else wrote that material, that he wasnÔøΩt aware it had been written. A 1996 Dallas Morning News interview says otherwise.
Jan 12, 2008 - 6:10 pm 19. Lem:“Dr. Paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns. He said they should be read and quoted in their entirety to avoid misrepresentation.
Dr. Paul also took exception to the comments of Mr. Bledsoe, saying that the voters in the 14th District and the people who know him best would be the final judges of his character.
‘If someone challenges your character and takes the interpretation of the NAACP as proof of a man’s character, what kind of a world do you live in?’ Dr. Paul asked.
In the interview, he did not deny he made the statement about the swiftness of black men.”
Source: Catalina Camia ,”Candidate’s comments on blacks questioned”
The Dallas Morning News,22 May 1996,8A
If the Ronulan, as Roger so aptly put it, fenomena says anything, it says to me that many folks are eager to listen to something daring, something stiring.
Its too bad that they are not geting it from where it should come from.
they get it from an nut.
could anybody inspire people any more?
w/o using tire words like change bla bla bla.
We complain about Ron Paul but he’s in part our own fault for not producing anybody that much better.
Jan 13, 2008 - 8:26 am 20. klrfz1:Don’t blame me for Ron Paul. I’ve ridiculed him and his supporters since I first learned about them.
Jan 13, 2008 - 10:43 am 21. Roger:GringoTex, thanks for sharing but we all know that Paul, on numerous occasions, has denied he is a racist. What he has not done is:
A. Explain why he allowed such things to be written under his hame for several years.
B. Tell us who wrote them. (He claims not to remember.)
Let us know when he gets together and does these elementary things.
Jan 13, 2008 - 12:46 pm 22. GringoTex:@ Roger
GringoTex, thanks for sharing but we all know that Paul, on numerous occasions, has denied he is a racist. What he has not done is: A. Explain why he allowed such things to be written under his hame for several years
HE ADMITTED IN 1996 THAT HE HIMSELF WROTE THEM.
See my previous posting. In other words, when he claimed recently that someone else had written them, he was contradicting the 1996 interview when he admitted to having written them himself. Please go back and reread what I quoted.
Jan 13, 2008 - 3:34 pm 23. Charlie (Colorado):Well, the other candidates may not be loony or incompetent, but they ARE politicians — so I can’t agree that they’re not liars.
DeMorgan’s Theorem: not (a or b or c) is (not a and not b and not c): so Roger’s just saying that the other candidates are all three.
Jan 14, 2008 - 9:34 am 24. Charlie (Colorado):Dammit. “… the other candidates aren’t all three.”
Jan 14, 2008 - 9:36 am 25. Neo:Ron Paul seems to have picked up right where “He Who Should Not Be Named” (AKA Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche) left off.
“He Who Should Not Be Named” was a preeminent “radical” (note: no additional adjective like left or right is need because he actually managed to span the entire spectrum and is disowned by both ends and the middle), some might say huckster.
Paul seems about the same.
Jan 14, 2008 - 11:17 am