Since I’ve mentioned Ron Paul a few times in this space, I wanted to mention that after appalling examples of racist and anti-gay sentiments from his newsletters came to light, I would no longer characterize myself as a Ron Paul supporter. Before Tuesday, the only evidence of Paul’s racism I’d seen was one issue of the newsletter. I took Paul at his word that the comments in question were written without his knowledge or approval, and that the writer was let go when they were brought to his attention. But now it appears that at least a dozen issues of his newsletter over a period of some 5 years contained similarly appalling comments. I no longer find Paul’s rationalizations plausible. Whether Paul wrote the newsletters himself is irrelevant. If he is not a bigot himself, he had no qualms about associating with bigots over the course of many years. I have more thoughts on Paul’s newsletters here and here.
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