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Scandal PFY vs. RP: Is There a Racist in the House?
by Bruce Ramsey
Ron Paul's presidential campaign was hit by scandal. What happened? How bad was it?
On January 8, the day before the New Hampshire primary, the New Republic published "Angry White Man: The Bigoted Past of Ron Paul." In the national news, it was a one-day story. Among left-liberals, it was a confirmation story: right-wingers are racists. Ho hum. Maybe it affected Paul's 8% showing in New Hampshire, but probably not, because the polls had put him about that high.
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Bruce Ramsey is a journalist in Seattle.
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Among libertarians it was a potboilover.
What were the facts? Over the years, Paul had sponsored several newsletters, such as the Ron Paul Political Report. Particularly in the early '90s, between Paul's stints in Congress, some of these newsletters engaged in a flippant racial disparagement. Here is the worst, as summarized by the New Republic:
On Blacks:
An October 1990 edition of the Political Report ridicules black activists, led by Al Sharpton, for demonstrating at the Statue of Liberty in favor of renaming New York City after Martin Luther King. The newsletter suggests that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" would be better alternatives — and says, "Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house."
A December 1990 newsletter describes Martin Luther King Jr. as "a world-class adulterer" who "seduced underage girls and boys" and "replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."
The January 1991 edition of the Political Report refers to King as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours" and a "flagrant plagiarist with a phony doctorate."
A February 1991 newsletter attacks "The X-Rated Martin Luther King."
On Gays:
The June 1990 issue of the Political Report says: "I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."
A January 1994 edition of the Survival Report states that "gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense," adding: "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."
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"Hate" is a word that gets used a lot in certain quarters, and I try to be parsimonious with it.
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The New Republic's piece also made an issue of Paul's criticism of Israel, implying that non-support of Israel is anti-Semitic as such, which it is not. The author, Jamie Kirchick, had heaped all the accusations together. He ended by suggesting that Ron Paul was "a man filled with hate."
Kirchick was having a good time. When the article appeared it got him invited on the Tucker Carlson show.
"Hate" is a word that gets used a lot in certain quarters, and I try to be parsimonious with it. Some of the newsletters were nasty. In some of the cases the positions were all right. It was defensible to laugh at the idea of renaming New York for Martin Luther King — and yet the way it was done was not defensible.
Why bring up newsletters from 1991? To label Ron Paul in 2008. That was the only reason. And yet the Ron Paul that we have seen during the campaign was nothing like the voice in those letters. Paul had not waged a racist campaign. He had been elected to Congress ten times, and he had apparently never waged a racist campaign. People stepped forward who had known the man a long time and said so. Bruce Bartlett, former assistant treasury secretary under George W. Bush — a man who had left Bush and written a book attacking him — was not attacking Paul. The interviewer on the neoconservative webpage Frontpagemag.com invited him to do that, and Bartlett declined. He said:
"I worked on Ron Paul's congressional staff back in the 1970s. I don't believe for a moment that he has a racist or homophobic bone in his body. But he can be a bit naive and overly trusting of people that he views as allies on the issues he really cares about, such as the debasement of the currency."
There were other such testimonials, one of them from an officer of the NAACP in Texas. There was even a statement from Kirchick himself, writing in a personal email to Berin M. Szoka of Gays & Lesbians for Ron Paul. Szoka wrote that he had met Kirchick at a Reason magazine party in Washington, D.C. Szoka posted Kirchick's letter. It included this statement:
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Kirchick wrote in a letter, "I don't think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I'm just cynical and enjoy getting supporters of political candidates riled up."
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"Anyways, I don't think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I'm just cynical and enjoy getting supporters of political candidates riled up. If you were a Giuliani guy I'd have called him a fascist."
Isn't that nice?
Here was the perfect time for anyone to stand up and say what racist or antigay thing Paul had personally said or done over the last 20, 30, or 40 years. And there was nothing.
Nothing. That is significant.
Reporters asked Paul about the newsletters. He said he had not written them and they did not reflect his beliefs. He said he didn't know who had written them, which, of course, sounded lame. Some bloggers who knew Paul accepted that he had not written them, though Eric Dondero, a former staffer who broke with Paul over the Iraq war, recalled him scribbling newsletter copy on tablets. Dondero and others said the pieces not written by Paul mainly had been written by his hired editor, Lew Rockwell, a former member of his congressional staff. Rockwell now heads the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, and runs the libertarian website LewRockwell.com.
Kirchick called Rockwell, who denied writing the newsletter copy. Rockwell said he had mainly handled the promotional copy. There followed another babblefest about Rockwell and the Mises Institute, with many bloggers vehemently charging the Mises folks with racism. One of the most fulminant was an anonymous web page called RightWatch, which argued that Rockwell was a racist because he had published articles by people associated with the League of the South. But Rockwell had published a lot of people, including leftists. He publishes twelve people every day, including blacks, Asians, and Jews. He has published me. But this RightWatch fellow was all wound up, and said the Mises Institute was a "viper's nest."
The most notable internet fulminator was John Robbins, Paul's chief of staff from 1981 to 1985, who posted an open letter on the internet, addressed to Rockwell:
"The puerile, racist, and completely un-Pauline comments that all informed people say you have caused to appear in Ron's newsletters over the course of several years have become an issue in his campaign. . . . You have allowed Ron to twist slowly in the wind. Because of your silence, Ron has been forced to issue repeated statements of denial, to answer repeated questions in multiple interviews, and to be embarrassed on national television. Your callous disregard for both Ron and his millions of supporters is unconscionable. If you were Dr. Paul's friend, or a friend of freedom, as you pretend to be, by now you would have stepped forward, assumed responsibility for those asinine and harmful comments, resigned from any connection to Ron or his campaign, and relieved Ron of the burden of having to repeatedly deny the charges of racism. But you have not done so, and so the scandal continues to detract from Ron's message. You know as well as I do that Ron does not have a racist bone in his
body, yet those racist remarks went out under his name, not yours. Pretty clever. But now it's time to man up, Lew. Admit your role, and exonerate Ron. You should have done it years ago."
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Rothbard could very well be responsible for the roughest language in the Paul letters. But there is no profit in piling on Rothbard, because he is dead.
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This is posturing. It reminds me of a dog barking publicly on behalf of his old master. And note that Robbins has relied on what "all informed people say" — and, in fact, the people who seem to be informed say these no-byline newsletters had more than one writer. Tim Virkkala, who was an editor at Liberty then, and privy to R.W. Bradford's libertarian gossip, says Murray Rothbard was also known to be a writer for Paul's letters. Rothbard was a polemicist of the first order. He loved a political brawl. He was also the originator of the "paleo" strategy of appealing to the populist Right — and all this was during his "paleo" period. Rothbard could very well be responsible for the roughest language in the Paul letters. But there is no profit in piling on Rothbard, because he is dead.
This is dogs fighting over old bones.
And it is not true that if the ghostwriter, or writers, stepped forward, it would take the spotlight off Ron Paul. It would put the media spotlight on Paul one more time. Nor would a confession and a groveling "exonerate Ron." The commonsense assumption is that when a man hires a ghostwriter, and markets the ghostwriter's words as his words, they become his words.
Paul is responsible for the newsletters.
What I gather from Virkkala and others is that Paul hired some people to produce red-meat newsletters to build up a right-wing donor list. Politicians rile up donors all the time; it is part of the technique of cultivation. Liberals say, or imply, that their opponents are misogynists, racists, Christian cultists, Constitution-destroyers, and corporate tools. Donor-targeted prose is always exaggerated and often some of the least defensible there is.
Still, Paul's violated a taboo. But the sin is, for the most part, 17 to 18 years old. Is it still mortal? Is there no statute of limitations? No half-life to its radioactivity? Some libertarians think so. They walk away from Paul. Whom, then, will they support? John McCain? Rudy Giuliani? Hillary Clinton?
Gay conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan, who had supported the war but changed his mind about it, switched his support from Ron Paul to Barack Obama. Were Paul's fans going to do that?
The Libertarian Party, anyone?
If you read the blogs of the most offended, there is a pattern. The people slamming Paul for racism differed with him over other things as well.
"I wasn't a fan of Ron Paul to begin with," wrote Cato's director of research, Brink Lindsey, on January 11. "I hadn't known about his old newsletters and their cesspool of racism and homophobia. But I didn't need to know about them to know that I wanted nothing to do with Ron Paul's brand of libertarianism. . . . Just look at his xenophobia, his sovereignty-obsessed nationalism, his fondness for conspiracy theories, his religious fundamentalism — here is someone with a crudely authoritarian worldview."
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Paul's sin is, for the most part, 17 to 18 years old. Is it still mortal? Is there no statute of limitations? No half-life to its radioactivity?
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Paul does seem to believe that the "security and prosperity partnership" proclaimed by the leaders of the United States, Canada, and Mexico is more than pabulum, and really a plan for a "North American Union." That is a kind of conspiracy theory. Score one for Lindsey here. Paul is against NAFTA and the WTO, and for that I would score another one for Cato's former point man on trade. But I bridle at "authoritarian worldview." Is it authoritarian to advocate pulling U.S. troops out of the Middle East? I recall that Brink Lindsey was the one who favored George W. Bush's war over there.
Several others, including the anonymous blogger of RightWatch, wrote as if Paul's position on immigration were prima facie evidence of racism. Immigration restriction may be unlibertarian in theory, but it is a position that many libertarians (and immigrants) nonetheless hold for practical reasons. It is revealing that people who are for open borders assume that those who are not are motivated by evil thoughts along the lines of race and ethnicity. It is a nasty assumption, even if it's stated in a polite way.
In the internet imbroglio over Kirchick's article, Lew Rockwell was attacked directly. Kirchick's piece had named LewRockwell.com as being against Abraham Lincoln. And so, it says, "Paul's alliance with neo-Confederates helps explain the views his newsletters have long espoused on race."
Note the non-neutrality of the wording, "have long espoused." It begs the question. It asserts what the article is trying to prove — that Paul is a racist now, by saying it is something he has "long espoused." Judging from the excerpts posted by the New Republic, the racial stuff from newsletters — not directly from him — came in the early 1990s, more than 15 years ago.
The statement also suggests that Paul is "allied" with neo-Confederates because of their racial beliefs. But none of the pieces I have seen on LewRockwell.com apologizes for the Confederates' racial beliefs in any way, or for slavery or Jim Crow. Really "neo-Confederate" is not an accurate label for Rockwell's position. He is thoroughly antistate and supports the right of secession — against any government, any time. Rockwell is anti-Lincoln because Lincoln was a nationalist, a centralizer of federal power and also, I think, because Lincoln is in a political temple no one else attacks. Attacking him becomes a point of distinction. Rockwell will allow it and the Cato people won't. Kirchick might have explained all that, but he didn't.
He had gone on to say:
"The people surrounding the von Mises Institute — including Paul — may describe themselves as libertarians, but they are nothing like the urbane libertarians who staff the Cato Institute or the libertines at Reason magazine."
The urbane libertarians versus the non-urbane libertarians. Another poke in the eye.
To this, Lincoln debunker Thomas DiLorenzo fired back on the LewRockwell blog with some non-racist bigotry about Kirchick's skin:
"Imagine my surprise to learn from an emailer this morning that the pimply-faced youth James Kirchick, who graduated from college barely a year ago, had his education funded by the neocon Olin Foundation. He apparently majored in warmongering and imperialism, referred to at Yale as 'International Security Studies.' I was equally surprised to see on the web that the PFY [pimply-faced youth] has also written articles for Frontpagemag.com defending the Iraq war."
Karen DeCoster, a Rockwell author, came out on her blog on behalf of Lew. She saw the pile-on as the work of the "Kochtopus," a term used in Rothbard's old newsletter to mean the organizations funded by Charles and David Koch, such as Cato. DeCoster wrote:
"The Kochtopus has been out to kill Rothbardian libertariansm . . . for a very long time, and this, they think, is their great chance. I have read the excerpts from the Ron Paul newsletters, and I can tell you this: those excerpts making light of immigrants/blacks/etc. are way too snappy and attempt to be way too humorous to have been written by Lew Rockwell. Lew is not a guy who tries to humor people. That is not his comparative advantage. Lew's only sense of humor is letting other people make him laugh. I do not say this to be demeaning — it is just his nature. He will never be the snappy, impetuous, humorous, quipster of the party. His personality is exactly the opposite. The seriousness of his personality is very obvious in his many writings. He is a warm and kind man who, with all of his success, could be a condescending jerk. Instead he is a very fair, hospitable, mellow, and serious man."
The opinions go on for miles. Perhaps DeCoster, who is an accountant, was right when she said there are too many libertarians without real careers who have nothing better to do than to get online and attack people. Maybe it was all World of Warcraft to them. I got the same message from former Reason editor Virginia Postrel, who is no fan of Paul's. She wrote: "Life is short, I don't make my living as a professional libertarian any more, and I don't feel responsible for commenting on every libertarian-related development that comes along."
The pattern was clear enough, anyway. The people who disagreed with Paul about the war, or about immigration and trade, or abortion, or about his belief in God, tended to see mortally sinful racism and homophobia in the yellowed newsletter excerpts, and the people who agreed with Paul had a strong urge to forgive. It may not be rationally defensible, but it is the way we are.
I am disappointed in Paul on this newsletter thing, but I will vote for him in my state's primary election, and with more enthusiasm than for any presidential candidate I can remember. Not because I think he has a chance of becoming president, or because I agree with him on everything. But I agree with him on some big things: the Constitution, federalism, government spending, and the war. I think it is important for the country, and the Republican Party, to hear his views, and to witness the fervor those views elicit in ordinary Americans.
About the hit piece by TNR's PFY, I take the view of Allan Walstad, professor of physics at the University of Pittsburgh. Writing as "Doc W" at Volokh.com, he posted his views on the good doctor from Texas:
"All I see is a 72-year-old guy working his butt off for limited government, individual liberty at home, foreign non-interventionism, fiscal responsibility — and getting sniped at because he's more closely associated with one childish warring faction of the libertarian movement than the other."
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