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Memo to Ron Paul: Quit

On December 20, when Ron Paul declined to refuse contributions from a white supremacist, I wrote:

When I dissected Ron Paul’s Presidential bid, Andrew Sullivan chastised me for leading “the guilt-by-association charge.” I didn’t feel much guilt at the time, and I’m feeling even less now .... You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. You’re known by the company you keep. I don’t care which aphorism you prefer, Paul needs to disavow those of his friends and supporters who are giving his campaign a bad name.

As you all probably know by now, James Kirchick is reporting that:

long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business. In the age before blogs, newsletters occupied a prominent place in right-wing political discourse. With the pages of mainstream political magazines typically off-limits to their views (National Review editor William F. Buckley having famously denounced the John Birch Society), hardline conservatives resorted to putting out their own, less glossy publications. These were often paranoid and rambling--dominated by talk of international banking conspiracies, the Trilateral Commission’s plans for world government, and warnings about coming Armageddon--but some of them had wide and devoted audiences. And a few of the most prominent bore the name of Ron Paul.

Paul’s newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978.  ...

Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author.

But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul’s name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

It’s given formerly pro-Paul Sullivan pause:

I think all of us of libertarian-conservative bent who have been buoyed by the Ron Paul revolution are disheartened and shocked. On reflection, although I just don’t believe he wrote those repulsive sentences himself, I think Paul needs to explain more. As in: who did write them? Who did publish them? What was the connection between them and the congressman?

James Joyner concludes a long and very thoughtful analysis with the following:

the best case scenario would seem to be that Paul has been marketing a “Ron Paul Newsletter” for years that is anything but. Which, by my reckoning, would make him a fraud.

A very wise man once told me: “say it roses, say it with mink, but never ever say it ink.” Those of us who choose to violate that rule by writing for a living or hobby are obliged to stand by a different rule: If it’s got your name on it, you own it. Ron Paul owns those words. As a commenter over at Joyner’s blog wrote:

The source documents here are Ron Paul’s Newsletters. Even if he didn’t write, edit, and hand-typeset each issue, it still went out under his name. The only believable way for Paul to distance himself from the opinions expressed, I remind you again, in his newsletters, is to a) come up with a rational excuse for them not being his opinions and b) start suing the bejeezus out of somebody.

Until that happens, he will continue to carry the stigma of being a racist, conspiracy-plotting fruitcake. Deal with it.

Precisely.