Bless his little heart. Ole’ Ron Paul went for broke (again) at the national level, and this time got far enough to pique some real interest. So much so, in fact, that he’s got some major explaining to do.
In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the “X-Rated Martin Luther King” as a “world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours,” “seduced underage girls and boys,” and “made a pass at” fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis” were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as “a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.”
And that’s just a snippet. I don’t even know where to begin to pull quotes (it’s unbelievably bad), so you really need to go read the whole thing.
Nothing like a rabid racist / bigot / conspiracy theorist at the helm of one’s congressional district to spice things up, eh?
Now before anybody decides to verbally pile onto Polimom here, I should tell you that in CD14, this is partially “old” news, just as Ron Paul’s rebuttal states. The Houston Chronicle did a piece on it in 1996, and I’ve seen it referred to now and again. Compared to the TNR’s far more in-depth expose, though, the Chronicle barely scratched the surface. Even if it’s true that Ron Paul didn’t actually pen the filth, I’m having a lot of trouble believing he didn’t know about it.
“Send your check for $24.95 to our Houston office, or charge the tape to your credit card at 1-800-RON-PAUL.”
Puh-lease.
And this kind of trash was spewed in Ron Paul’s newsletters for decades.
So… obviously Rep. Paul isn’t White House bound. I’d like to point out, though, that he maintains a seat here in my neck of the woods. And he’s up for re-election. Which brings me to something I read on another blog (Hot Air) this evening, written before the TNR article released:
Reserve judgment until you can read them for yourself, as they simply can’t be as brutally bad as Kirchick makes them out to be. For one thing, if they were, Paul could never have gotten elected to Congress;
They are. And he was.
How embarrassing. And it doesn’t make me feel any better that I didn’t vote for him.