Ron Paul Approved Racist, Anti-Semitic, and Anti-Gay Newsletters

When the media first began to focus on some of Ron Paul's former newsletters that were racist and bigoted in nature, the first story line to come out of the Paul camp was that Ron Paul had not been fully aware of the content. That story line is proving to have been a lie - are we surprised? - as Paul's associates both past and present are speaking out and confirming that the presidential candidate did in fact approve the nasty news letters. It's yet another example of candidates lying when they ought to know that eventually they will get caught. And the result is that the lying only compounds their public relations problem. Not, of course, that racism and anti-gay bigotry won't play well with a significant portion of the Christianist and Tea Party base of the Republican Party. The Washington Post looks at Paul's crumbling excuse that he was not aware of the inflammatory content of the newsletters. Here are highlights:

Ron Paul, well known as a physician, congressman and libertarian , has also been a businessman who pursued a marketing strategy that included publishing provocative, racially charged newsletters to make money and spread his ideas, said three people with direct knowledge of Paul’s businesses.

[P]eople close to Paul’s operations said he was deeply involved in the company that produced the newsletters, Ron Paul & Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day.

“It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. . . . He would proof it,’’ said Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul’s company and a supporter of the Texas congressman’s.

Jesse Benton, a presidential campaign spokesman, said that the accounts of Paul’s involvement were untrue and that Paul was practicing medicine full time when “the offensive material appeared under his name.” Paul “abhors it, rejects it and has taken responsibility for it as he should have better policed the work being done under his masthead,” Benton said. He did not comment on Paul’s business strategy.

[L]ast month, he told CNN that he was unaware at the time of the controversial passages. “I’ve never read that stuff. I’ve never read — I came — was probably aware of it 10 years after it was written,’’ Paul said.

A person involved in Paul’s businesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid criticizing a former employer, said Paul and his associates decided in the late 1980s to try to increase sales by making the newsletters more provocative. They discussed adding controversial material, including racial statements, to help the business, the person said.

“It was playing on a growing racial tension, economic tension, fear of government,’’ said the person, who supports Paul’s economic policies but is not backing him for president. “I’m not saying Ron believed this stuff. It was good copy. Ron Paul is a shrewd businessman.’’

The articles included racial, anti-Semitic and anti-gay content. They claimed, for example, that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “seduced underage girls and boys’’ . . . . The June 1990 edition of the Ron Paul Political Report included the statement: “Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.”

Paul's campaign is trying to claim that Paul's not a racist, an anti-Semite or anti-gay per se, but past actions would seem to speak louder than current defensive denials.