Republican Congressman and presidential candidate from Texas. Not a nice man. A few choice quotes from his newsletters:

"If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

"Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e., support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action."

"Politically sensible blacks are outnumbered as decent people... I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city (Washington) are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

"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."

"By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government and that the goal of the Zionist movement is to stifle criticism."

In short, he is what we in The Business like to call a "racist motherfucker".

Nowadays, Paul prefers to tell people that his newsletters were written by underlings, and that he neither read, wrote, nor approved of the content of his newsletter. Even if you accept that explanation, it doesn't really make him look good, does it? He put out a newsletter with his name on the masthead, and he couldn't be bothered to supervise its creation? Is that the sort of leadership we could expect from him as president? "I didn't do it, someone else did it, it's not my fault."

Anyway, I don't buy it. I say the quotes were either written by Paul or approved by him -- he's never struck me as a hands-off manager. Plus he's got a problem with lots of neo-nazis and Klansmen endorsing him. Nah, I say he's a racist motherfucker, and I say to hell with him.

Ron Paul is a doctor in OB/GYN by trade. He is something of a lone wolf in the Congress, earning the nickname "Dr. No" by his fellow Republicans. When the Republicans were looking to build the B-1 bomber, they desperately needed his vote, but despite enormous pressure on him to vote with them, he refused, thinking it to be a waste of money, and another weapon of an imperialist government. He voted against a medal for Mother Teresa, considering such a move to be unconstitutional. He challenged his colleagues to pony up $100 each to mint the medal for her, which they refused, naturally. He then said that it is easy to be generous with other people's money. He is strongly pro-life, and supports repealing federal laws regulating abortion, as he considers it to best be left a state issue.

I was skeptical regarding Jet-Poop's allegation of his being a racist. I still don't think he is a racist, but that is not to say that Jet-Poop's allegations are false. From an interview with Texas Monthly.

In one issue of the Ron Paul Survival Report, which he had published since 1985, he called former U.S. representative Barbara Jordan a "fraud" and a "half-educated victimologist." In another issue, he cited reports that 85 percent of all black men in Washington, D.C., are arrested at some point: "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." And under the headline "Terrorist Update," he wrote: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

In spite of calls from Gary Bledsoe, the president of the Texas State Conference of the NAACP, and other civil rights leaders for an apology for such obvious racial typecasting, Paul stood his ground. He said only that his remarks about Barbara Jordan related to her stands on affirmative action and that his written comments about blacks were in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." He denied any racist intent. What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U. S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this.

When I ask him why, he pauses for a moment, then says, "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. I think the one on Barbara Jordan was the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady." Paul says that item ended up there because "we wanted to do something on affirmative action, and it ended up in the newsletter and became personalized. I never personalize anything."

His reasons for keeping this a secret are harder to understand: "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 they (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.'" It is a measure of his stubbornness, determination, and ultimately his contrarian nature that, until this surprising volte-face in our interview, he had never shared this secret. It seems, in retrospect, that it would have been far, far easier to have told the truth at the time.

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