The rhetoric when it came to Jews was little better. The newsletters display an obsession with Israel; no other country is mentioned more often in the editions I saw, or with more vitriol. A 1987 issue of Paul's Investment Letter called Israel "an aggressive, national socialist state," and a 1990 newsletter discussed the "tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise." Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, "Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little."
Kirchick has put onto the New Republic website the text of the Ron Paul newsletters that he quotes from, so it's possible for the reader to judge for herself whether Kirchick has read him correctly.
this has been debunked.. this story is simply a smear piece
ReplyDeletehere is proof
Here's a transcript between David Weigel of reason.com and Ron Paul on 1/08/07 regarding the New Republic Article.
reason: Do you have any response to The New Republic's article about your newsletters?
Ron Paul: All it is--it's old stuff. It's all been rehashed. It's all political stuff.
reason: Why don't you release all the old letters?
Paul: I don't even have copies of them, because it's ancient history.
reason: Do you stand by what appears in the letters? Did you write these...?
Paul: No. I've discussed all of that in the past. It's just old news.
reason: Did the New Republic talk to you before they ran it?
Paul: No, I never talked to them.
reason: What do you think of Martin Luther King?
Paul: Martin Luther King is one of my heroes because he believed in nonviolence and that's a libertarian principle. Rosa Parks is the same way. Gandhi, I admire. Because they're willing to take on the government, they were willing to take on bad laws. So I believe in civil disobedience if you understand the consequences. Martin Luther King was a great person because he did that and he changed America for the better because of that.
reason: You didn't write the derogatory things about him in the letter?
Paul: No.
source:
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124281.html
the best part of the new republic article is when it says this:
"Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself."
http://tinyurl.com/3caypg
come on, this is an obvious smear.... don't buy in to this low level mockery of journalistic integrity!! James Kirchick has none.
Well, then, why were all of these articles published under his name? Over a period of many years? I just don't believe his denials.
ReplyDeleteHave you read the articles? I suggest you go to the TNR site and read all of the newsletters they've posted. Sobering reading. What I found most disturbing (aside from the racist ones) were his praises of the militia movement in the mid-1990s.
Thanks for the article.
ReplyDeleteBut this reminds me of 1996, when people were digging up all these Pat Buchanan quotes to make him took like a racist and an anti-Semite.
I'm not going to try to offer an explanation for all of those Ron Paul quotes, but what I find interesting in this: The candidates who are attacked for racism are often the ones who select African-American running mates. Buchanan chose Ezola Foster in 2000, and there is talk that Ron Paul will choose Walter Williams (Paul is a fan of Williams' work).
Um, Pat Buchanan *is* a racist and especially an anti-semite. See the persuasive account of his right-wing, anti-semitic, and Holocaust denying beliefs and actions at this website - http://www.realchange.org/buchanan.htm. And what about William F. Buckley's comment, made in the December 30, 1991 issue of National Review - "I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism…"
ReplyDelete