Given the sheer volume of shrieking in the blogosphere when the story came out at TNR on Tuesday, I didn’t think this would take very long.
Paul told CNN’s “The Situation Room” Thursday that he didn’t write any of the offensive articles and has “no idea” who did.
“When you bring this question up, you’re really saying, ‘You’re a racist’ or ‘Are you a racist?’ And the answer is, ‘No, I’m not a racist,'” he said.
Paul said he had never even read the articles with the racist comments.
Ohfergoodnessake! How can he expect that to fly? Even if it’s true that he didn’t author them, he can’t just wave it away. Two decades worth of ugliness, going out monthly, under his name, and it was all unknown to him? I don’t buy it.
Matt Welch, the editor-in-chief of “Reason” magazine who shares some of Paul’s beliefs on big government, says he has never heard the congressman make racist comments like those in the newsletters.
“What I think some people are looking for him to do is to say, ‘OK, who wrote that?’ I mean, there’s 20 years, give or take, worth of newsletters there,” Welch said.
20 years, give or take. Amazing.
Meanwhile, according to this site, it seems that Fox (for the moment) has invited everybody to the South Carolina GOP debate:
“While many conservatives, libertarians, and fair-minded people of all political persuasions are still disappointed at the Fox News Channel’s (FNC) exclusion of Ron Paul from the January 6 debate in New Hampshire, we are relieved that their January 10 debate in South Carolina will include all of the candidates.
Any bets on whether the subject of these newsletters will come up? Assuming Ron Paul’s still in the race, that is…
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Ron Paul will still be in the race because nobody believes this garbage.
Its a smear piece to try to discredit him. You made it way to obvious when you brought out the article as soon as the Primaries started.
Nice try though!
If GWB can get America on war footing over 3 Iranian speedboats, then they’ll buy this piece of crap too. Anyone with a BRAIN can go to the candidate’s website and read what he ACTUALLY says about racism. CNN knows this, but nevertheless they run this shoddy piece of non-journalism. Its pretty bad when they have to dig back 20 years for something he didn’t write for lack of attack material.
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/racism/