In 1996, when Paul was again running for congress, the Houston Chronicle exposed this piece. According to the Chronicle, Paul responded that “he opposes racism and that his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of ‘current events and statistical reports of the time.’” Furthermore, the Chronicle reported, “A campaign spokesman for Paul said statements about the fear of black males mirror pronouncements by black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has decried the spread of urban crime.”
In other words, he copped to writing the piece, then tried to defend it as non-racist, hoping few people would bother to look at the nitty-gritty of its contents, which aren’t exactly reminiscent of Jesse Jackson.
In 2001, however, Paul told Texas Monthly that he hadn’t written the piece: “I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren’t really written by me. It wasn’t my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around.” Based on this, Paul’s fans have rushed to exonerate him. “Don’t say he wrote that piece without knowing THE FACTS. The facts PROVE HIM INNOCENT!” Therefore, the whole issue can be dismissed, and the lovefest can resume.
This suggests a Monty Pythonesque courtroom scenario. “How do you plead?” “Not guilty.” “All right,” says the judge, “case dismissed!” According to the reasoning of Ron Paul’s exonerators, if you say you didn’t do something, that’s enough.
In actual fact, Paul’s 2001 denial has little evidentiary value. Given the potential harm to his political career if he admitted authorship, his word–like anyone’s word in a similar situation, and especially any politician’s–should be taken with a large grain of salt. In any court outside Monty Python’s jurisdiction, the judge takes your word for it if you plead guilty and doesn’t if you plead innocent. Not that Paul’s accused of any crime, but the same common sense that the law employs applies here perfectly.
Beyond basic skepticism, Paul’s denial is inherently implausible. He published the piece in his own newsletter in 1992, said nothing about it until confronted with it during a campaign, admitted at that time to having written it–while arguing that there was nothing wrong with it–and then…five years later, he said he didn’t write it. Furthermore, Paul to this day refuses to provide the media with copies of his old and now-unobtainable newsletter so that the rest of us could have a look at what all he had to say. Under such circumstances, his denial is not merely no proof, it’s presumptively a lie.
Paul’s explanation?
They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn’t come from me directly, but the campaign aides said that’s too confusing. “It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.”
This is pretty far-fetched, if you ask me. Politicians blame things on their subordinates all the time. There’s nothing particularly confusing about the fact that something goes out under your name that you didn’t write. Who believes that politicians actually write all the things that go out under their names? Paul could easily have apologized for letting it slip into his publication while disclaiming the sentiments the piece expressed. Instead, he defended it and argued that it somehow wasn’t racist–precisely what you would expect from the worst kind of politically ambitious, right-wing racist.
There are only two reasonably economical explanations of the facts. The most economical explanation is that Paul wrote the piece, told the truth in 1996, and lied in 2001. The second-most economical explanation is that someone else wrote the piece and Paul edited and approved it. In this scenario, he didn’t see much point in claiming non-authorship in 1996 since he agreed with it anyway and was responsible for its content, so what good would it do him to point out that he didn’t actually write it? It would just make him look evasive. But by 2001 he wanted to politically reposition himself, so he tried to distance himself from it.
Note that this second scenario is fully consistent with his own denial. “Those words weren’t really written by me. It wasn’t my language at all.” “They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them.” He doesn’t say he didn’t agree with the piece–he only denies composing the specific language. He doesn’t even say he wasn’t personally responsible for reading it and approving it for publication. Perhaps this is the “moral responsibility” he is referring to, though he no doubt uttered that phrase hoping folks would come up with a gentler interpretation.
For those who still want to believe that Paul didn’t know about the piece until after it was published, consider the logistics. Why would anyone put out an eight-page monthly publication under his own name and not bother reading the contents? If he was traveling around, he could have given a whole issue a quick read during a short plane trip and vetoed any article he didn’t like. He hadn’t given up on his political ambitions. Why take the risk of being tarred by someone else’s judgment?
A final point must be made, that even in the unlikely event that Paul neither wrote nor approved the piece, he had, in his own words, “moral responsibility” for it. If he really abhored its sentiments–if he felt towards virulent racism as does any decent human being–he would have had no choice but to disavow the piece in a subsequent issue of his newsletter. But if that had happened, he would just as certainly have noted the fact in 1996, when the issue came up.
His actual silence would thus, in even the most generous interpretation, indicate that he had no strong objection to what was written. It might not be the kind of thing he himself would say, it might not have been written in his style, he might even have disagreed with bits of it, but–he did not consider it abominable. And if he didn’t consider it abominable, he is a racist sympathizer.
But there’s no need to rely on this one piece of writing to find that out. His record, right up to the present, amply proves his sympathy for racist causes. Paul was apparently a fairly recent (August 2006) guest on “The Political Cesspool,” the aptly named unofficial radio show of the Council of Conservative Citizens. The Council of Conservative Citizens is the “new and improved” version of the Council of White Citizens that served as the “uptown Klan” during the long struggle against civil rights that consumed much of the white South in the 1950’s and 60’s.
I say apparently because phenry’s expose of Paul, on which this article is partly based, states that Paul is listed on the Cesspool’s guest list…but he’s nowhere to be found there. Given that phenry’s piece seems to be otherwise reliable, is this a mistake, or did someone delete Ron Paul from the list, perhaps to avoid embarrassing him? Very probably the latter, since his forthcoming appearance is also mentioned on a right-wing web page. “One of the only truly conservative Congressmen in office today, Ron Paul, will be doing a live interview on The Political Cesspool www.thepoliticalcesspool.org tonight…. No matter what your opinion of the Cesspool is you will not want to miss this interview.” That doesn’t sound like somebody who’s against Paul smearing him or repeating misinformation, especially since the other content of the site is consistently right-wing. Still another site by a self-described “Republican soccer mom from East Tennessee” who purports to dislike “both extremes” of the political spectrum also reports having seen him listed in the Cesspool guest list (see also this follow-up in which she notes his disappearance from said list).
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