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Ron Paul Walks Out Of Interview After Facing Questions About Racist Content In Newsletter
By Eli Clifton on Dec 22, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) emergence as the front-runner in the Iowa GOP primary is bringing new scrutiny on Paul’s newsletters from the 1980s and 1990s. The newsletters, published under his name, included content claiming that African-Americans are trying to give white people HIV, suggested that Washington, DC is “anti-white and proud of it,” provided instructions on how to murder African-Americans, and warned of “malicious gay(s)” who spread HIV.
Yesterday, Paul walked out of an interview after CNN’s Gloria Borger pressed him on his role in publishing the racist content:
PAUL: I never read that stuff. I was probably aware of it ten years after it was written. And it’s been going on twenty years that people have pestered me about this. And CNN does it every single time.
BORGER: Is it legitimate? Is it a legitimate question to ask that something that went out under your name? [crosstalk]
PAUL: And when you get the answer it’s legitimate that you take the answers I give. You know what the answer is? I didn’t write them. I didn’t read them at the time. And I disavow them. That is the answer.
BORGER: It’s legitimate, it’s legitimate. These things are pretty incendiary.
PAUL: Because of people like you.
BORGER: No, come one. Some of the stuff was very incendiary, you know, saying that in 1993 the Israelis were responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center. That kind of stuff.
PAUL: Goodbye.
As reported yesterday on ThinkProgress, the likely author of the racist rants published under Paul’s name is Lew Rockwell, a notorious libertarian activist who led a campaign to align libertarians and bigots in the 1980s and 1990s. But the fact that his newsletter published racist statements over a series of years raises real questions about Paul’s claim that he “never read that stuff.” Thus far, Paul has refused to name the author(s) of the offensive articles.
In a seperate CNN interview yesterday, Paul said:
PAUL: I really don’t know [who the authors were]. Twenty years ago, I had six or eight people helping me with this letter, and I was practicing medicine, to tell you the truth.
VELSHI: Right.
PAUL: And, so, I do not know.
VELSHI: Well, we could find out because you have six or eight people, I guess, one of those six or eight people.
PAUL: Well, possibly, I could.
Paul’s assertion that CNN is to blame for asking him about the racist content of his newsletters is contradicted by his answer to a similar question in 2008, in which he told [VIDEO] CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “I know there’s reason [to ask these questions]. I don’t say you’re unjustified in asking the question
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
I saw that interview on TV. She was being really stupid and counterproductive. Ron Paul pulls in the lead in Iowa and the old mud comes out from a long time ago over and over to label the guy racist.
Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
They have only begun. Fact is all the news letters have Ron Pauls name on them.
So Mr. Paul is either the racist bigot as appears.
Or he is telling the truth and he had no idea how his name was being used by another person. And that is pretty damn stupid. Certainly not the type of control and a handle on his life that would be necessary to conduct the matters of the presidents office.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
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This has heen hashed and rehashed for at least ten years...the letters were written over 20 yrs ago. He has said time and time again he never wrote them and they are false statements. Years ago!. He explained all this ,over and over, he has said the same thing everytime.....check all the transcripts from past years...his argument against these letters don't waiver. no proof whatsoever. It would be like going over obamas birth fiasco again. its a non issue.
-------------------- jordan Posts: 5812 | From: st paul,mn | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by jordanreed: This has heen hashed and rehashed for at least ten years...the letters were written over 20 yrs ago. He has said time and time again he never wrote them and they are false statements. Years ago!. He explained all this ,over and over, he has said the same thing everytime.....check all the transcripts from past years...his argument against these letters don't waiver. no proof whatsoever. It would be like going over obamas birth fiasco again. its a non issue.
Agreed...Ron Paul is in no way a racist. In fact he is a champion for minorities...
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It's all in the timing... Posts: 4303 | From: DSA | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by jordanreed: This has heen hashed and rehashed for at least ten years...the letters were written over 20 yrs ago. He has said time and time again he never wrote them and they are false statements. Years ago!. He explained all this ,over and over, he has said the same thing everytime.....check all the transcripts from past years...his argument against these letters don't waiver. no proof whatsoever. It would be like going over obamas birth fiasco again. its a non issue.
Exactly, and that is what he told the reporter in the interview. You have to really watch this interview instead of reading handpicked quotes from it. Just more smear against Ron Paul, nothing new, but more so expected. We just all need to keep giving Obama a pass on everything and point out the faults of all the candidates running.
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Good point, I thought I was being a good open minded person by trying to understand her way of reporting "news".
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Paul Campaign Touts Endorsement Of Preacher Who Advocates Death Penalty For Gays
By Igor Volsky on Dec 29, 2011 at 10:11 am
Ron Paul has developed a “live and let live” approach to same-sex marriage and gay rights on the campaign trail, but his efforts to attract Evangelical voters ahead of the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses have revealed, a darker social conservative side to the libertarian Republican from Texas. For instance, earlier this week, the Paul campaign touted the endorsement of Reverend Phillip Kayser, pastor of Dominion Covenant Church in Omaha, Nebraska, for the “enlightening statements he makes on how Ron Paul’s approach to government is consistent with Christian beliefs.” Kayser has previously argued that the Bible justifies capital punishment against gay people — and still stands by this belief:
“Difficulty in implementing Biblical law does not make non-Biblical penology just,” he argued. “But as we have seen, while many homosexuals would be executed, the threat of capital punishment can be restorative. Biblical law would recognize as a matter of justice that even if this law could be enforced today, homosexuals could not be prosecuted for something that was done before.”
Reached by phone, Kayser confirmed to TPM that he believed in reinstating Biblical punishments for homosexuals — including the death penalty — even if he didn’t see much hope for it happening anytime soon. While he said he and Paul disagree on gay rights, noting that Paul recently voted for repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, he supported the campaign because he believed Paul’s federalist take on the Constitution would allow states more latitude to implement fundamentalist law. Especially since under Kayser’s own interpretation of the Constitution there is no separation of Church and State.
Paul has since stripped the press release announcing Kaiser’s endorsement from its site, but Kaiser is not the only anti-gay supporter to join the campaign. Mike Heath, formerly of the Maine Family Policy Council and American Family Association, came on board earlier this month to run church outreach. Heath has suggested that gay marriage was to blame for Maine’s “endless rain and gloom,” writing, “Our leaders allowed a cloud of error to hide the light of reason, and then the rain began.” In 2004, he embarked on a witch hunt against gay members of the Maine legislature, asking supporters, to “e-mail us tips, rumors, speculation and facts” regarding the sexual orientation of the state’s political leaders.”
Paul’s old newsletters from the late 1980s and 1990s have described HIV/AIDS as a gay disease and Paul himself refused to use the bathroom in the the house of a gay supporter. As longtime Paul aide Eric Dondero has revealed, Paul is “personally uncomfortable around homosexuals, no different from a lot of older folks of his era.”
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
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