Too late to ignore - attacks on Ron Paul

Ron Paul Flips Out Over Accusation That He Believed 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Huffington Post,

1 Juanuary, 2012

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who is expected to do very well in the Iowa caucuses this week, aggressively fended off accusations on Sunday that he has engaged in 9/11 conspiracy theories and wrote a series of racist and homophobic newsletters published under his name in the 1980s and 1990s.

While Paul is no stranger to conspiracy theories, he erupted when asked by ABC's Jake Tapper about rumors that he once believed the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.

"Now, wait, wait, wait, wait," he told Tapper on "This Week." "Don't go any further on that. That's complete nonsense."

Former Paul aide Eric Dondero, who worked closely with him from 1987 to 2003, recently wrote that Paul "engaged in conspiracy theories including perhaps the attacks were coordinated with the CIA, and that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time." Dondero said that Paul believed George W. Bush planned to use the attacks as a justification for invading Iraq, which Paul vehemently opposed, and that he expressed "no sympathies whatsoever" for the 9/11 victims.

Paul did tell Iowa voters earlier this month that "there was glee" in the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks because it gave them a pretext to invade Iraq, and he has come under fire for his radically "non-interventionist" views on foreign policy that are out of step with the Republican mainstream. But he vehemently denies having engaged in a 9/11 conspiracy theory and would not engage in a conversation about Dondero's accusations on Sunday.

"About the conspiracy of Bush -- of Bush knowing about this? No, no, come on. Come on. Let's be reasonable," he told Tapper. "That's just off-the-wall."

Paul is soaring in the latest Iowa polls along with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, but in the few days ahead of the vote, he has been forced to explain a number of odd and alarming moments in his political history, including a series of racist and homophobic newsletters he produced. Paul insists that he didn't write or even read the offensive comments, and he walked out of a recent interview with CNN's Gloria Berger after she repeatedly asked him about them.

On Sunday, Paul admitted to writing "a lot of part of" the newsletters, the economic parts, and acknowledged that allowing the offensive comments to be published under his name was a management error. But he insisted that his policies on the drug war, the death penalty, and the military, which disproportionately affect minorities, do more to help race relations than any of the other candidates' policies.

"On the issue of race relations, I'm the one that really addresses it," he said. "And I think that people ought to, you know, look at my position there, rather than dwelling on eight sentences that I didn't write and didn't authorize and have been, you know, apologetic about, because it shouldn't have been there and it was terrible stuff."

Now that ignoring Ron Paul hasn’t worked it is time to go on the attack

Ron Paul’s quest to undo the party of Lincoln

Michael Gerson,

Washington Post,

2 January 2012

Let us count the ways in which the nomination of Ron Paul would be groundbreaking for the GOP.

No other recent candidate hailing from the party of Lincoln has accused Abraham Lincoln of causing a “senseless” war and ruling with an “iron fist.” Or regarded Ronald Reagan’s presidency a “dramatic failure.” Or proposed the legalization of prostitution and heroin use. Or called America the most “aggressive, extended and expansionist” empire in world history. Or promised to abolish the CIA, depart NATO and withdraw military protection from South Korea. Or blamed terrorism on American militarism, since “they’re terrorists because we’re occupiers.” Or accused the American government of a Sept. 11 “coverup” and called for an investigation headed by Dennis Kucinich. Or described the killing of Osama bin Laden as “absolutely not necessary.” Or affirmed that he would not have sent American troops to Europe to end the Holocaust. Or excused Iranian nuclear ambitions as “natural,” while dismissing evidence of those ambitions as “war propaganda.” Or published a newsletter stating that the 1993 World Trade Center attack might have been “a setup by the Israeli Mossad,” and defending former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke and criticizing the “evil of forced integration.”

Each of these is a disqualifying scandal. Taken together, a kind of grandeur creeps in. The ambition of Paul and his supporters is breathtaking. They wish to erase 158 years of Republican Party history in a single political season, substituting a platform that is isolationist, libertarian, conspiratorial and tinged with racism. It won’t happen. But some conservatives seem paradoxically drawn to the radicalism of Paul’s project. They prefer their poison pill covered in glass and washed down with battery acid. It proves their ideological manhood.

In many ways, Paul is the ideal carrier of this message. His manner is vague and perplexed rather than angry — as though he is continually searching for lost car keys. Yet those who reject his isolationism are called “warmongers.” The George W. Bush administration, in his view, was filled with “glee” after the Sept. 11 attacks, having found an excuse for war. Paul is just like your grandfather — if your grandfather has a nasty habit of conspiratorial calumny.

Recent criticism of Paul — in reaction to racist rants contained in the Ron Paul Political Report — has focused on the candidate’s view of civil rights. Associates have denied he is a racist, which is both reassuring and not particularly relevant. Whatever his personal views, Paul categorically opposes the legal construct that ended state-sanctioned racism. His libertarianism involves not only the abolition of the Department of Education but also a rejection of the federal role in civil rights from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This is the reason Paul is among the most anti-Lincoln public officials since Jefferson Davis resigned from the United States Senate. According to Paul, Lincoln caused 600,000 Americans to die in order to “get rid of the original intent of the republic.” Likewise, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 diminished individual liberty because the “federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please.” A federal role in civil rights is an attack on a “free society.” According to Paul, it is like the federal government dictating that you can’t “smoke a cigar.”

The comparison of civil rights to the enjoyment of a cigar is a sad symptom of ideological delirium. It also illustrates confusion at the heart of libertarianism. Government can be an enemy of liberty. But the achievement of a free society can also be the result of government action — the protection of individual liberty against corrupt state governments or corrupt business practices or corrupt local laws. In 1957, President Eisenhower sent 1,000 Army paratroopers to Arkansas to forcibly integrate Central High School in Little Rock. This reduced Gov. Orval Faubus’s freedom. It increased the liberty of Carlotta Walls LaNier, who was spat upon while trying to attend school. A choice between freedoms was necessary — and it was not a hard one.

Paul’s conception of liberty is not the same as Lincoln’s — which is not a condemnation of Lincoln. Paul’s view would have freed African Americans from the statism of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Act. It would have freed the occupants of concentration camps from their dependency on liberating armies. And it would free the Republican Party from any claim to conscience or power.

And from CNN