Ryan Sager has been looking into some comments that ran in Ron Paul’s old newsletter, claiming they show he’s “he’s pretty racist and also an anti-Semite.” The race comments are, in fact, quite awful. They include such gems as:
If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.
…and…
I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.
…and…
We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.
Now, the odd thing here is that Paul basically stood by all this at the time, but would later tell the Texas Monthly that the offending remarks had actually been written by a staffer (since fired). This sounds like a weird cop-out, except that these few examples are so radically aberrant for Paul that I’m actually inclined to buy it. The truly strange thing, then, is that his campaign aides seem to have believed he’d be less harmed by sticking with those statements than by the admission that he’d had a staffer writing his newsletter for him. And, indeed, they apparently didn’t hurt his reelection campaign too much even when he wasn’t disavowing them—in itself sort of disturbing. Supposing he didn’t write the original, though, I still don’t think it reflects especially well on him that he wouldn’t want to say as much, rather loudly, when they first were published.
I am a little curious, though, about what Sager considers dispositive evidence that Paul’s an anti-Semite. That claim rests entirely on this statement:
By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government.
Now maybe that’s mildly hyperbolic—I’d put the AARP first on that list—but is this really all it takes to count as an anti-Semite now? Thinking that the Israel lobby is influential (this is beyond serious debate) and that its influence is generally malign? Or, more to the point, since the answer is obviously “yes” in some circles: Does Ryan think that’s all it takes?
4 responses so far ↓
1 SomeCallMeTim // May 21, 2007 at 8:05 pm
And, indeed, they apparently didn’t hurt his reelection campaign too much even when he wasn’t disavowing them—in itself sort of disturbing.
Umm…welcome to Texas? That said, these things were said a long time ago, by a Republican from the South. I don’t think it says much about where his head is today, and I find it strange indeed that the remarks are somehow disqualifying from someone running for the Republican nomination, rather than the general election.
2 Anonymous // May 22, 2007 at 5:30 pm
AARP over NEA?
3 Julian Sanchez // May 22, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Yeah, I think so. The NEA’s power is more concentrated on the Dem side — notice you will hear Republicans bitching about the influence of teacher unions. Nobody dares complain about the AARP. And I think that’s consistent with the National Journal rankings of lobbying power, which consistently puts AARP on top, with AIPAC, NEA, NRA, and others jockeying about in the top 5 over time.
4 Jacob T. Levy // May 22, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I was a high-school-kid-for-Ron-Paul enthusiast back in my childish LP days. And I’m pretty sure that I remember finding out that he was at least friendly with the Spotlight/ Liberty Lobby crowd. At the very least, he seemed willing to treat them as respectable on the grounds of shared opposition to the Federal Reserve.
I don’t remember any concrete thing– this was almost 20 years ago– but I do remember that by November of 88 I was a little creeped out.