NewsletterGate Schism Getting Ugly

Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo delivered on Jan 18 the detailed defense of the Ron Paul newsletters that LewRockwell.com has been suspiciously AWOL from attempting. He bitterly attacks Reason Magazine and the Cato Institute in a lengthy posting titled "Why the Beltway Libertarians Are Trying to Smear Ron Paul". Raimondo does a good job of defending the many marginal quotes from the newsletters, but merely uses his own gay status to wave away the vile "I miss the closet" quote. He doesn't even mention the two other most damning quotes: "limp wrist" and "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks".

Raimondo charges that Reason and Cato are corrupted by big-money contributors, and claims:

I learn, from inside sources, that Reason senior editor Brian Doherty, author of the monumental Radicals for Capitalism, a “freewheeling” history of the American libertarian movement, is in danger of being fired because he’s too pro-Paul.

This exchange with Reason editor Matt Welch in the comments shows that Raimondo got at least one fact wrong in the original version of his post:

The notions that I ever had any association with Suck magazine, or that Brian Doherty’s job at reason is in any way threatened, are both lies.

Posted by Matt Welch on Jan 18, 2008.

Fuck you, Welch. I know for a fact that you threatened Doherty. As for Suck magazine, I guess thinking you had any kind of job at all was a real error.

Posted by Justin Raimondo on Jan 18, 2008.

You know nothing of the sort, cuz it ain’t remotely true. Keep trying, though.

Posted by Matt Welch on Jan 18, 2008.

Regarding Mat Welch’s association with _Suck_, we regret the factual error and a correction has been made in the text.

Posted by Richard Spencer on Jan 18, 2008.

Eric Dondero later chimes in to repeat a story about Raimondo from the 1987 LP NatCon in Seattle:

The very writer of the article above - Justin Raimondo - verbally assaulted Ron Paul and his wife Carol, in the the 2nd floor of the Ballroom entrance at the Marriott right before the Nomination speeches. Raimondo walked up to Ron and Carol waving a copy of his Newsletter indicting Paul for being a “crazy, Right-wing lunatic.” He proceeded to scream at them at the top of his lungs for 5 minutes before the gathered Paul supporters managed to drown him out.

There were at least 200 witnesses to the incident.

For the rest of that year Raimondo went on to savage Paul in his writings, and even stalked Paul at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans later that year, repeating his screaming tirades in front of confused Republican delegates at the SuperDome.

And now 20 years later Raimondo is defending Paul?

Carol Moore concurs:

20 years ago the author of this piece was writing long screeds criticizing Paul for just the same things TNR is criticizing them for now. (I’ve still got my copies.)

Jan 24: Julian Sanchez demolishes Raimondo's piece on his blog, a couple days after posting this takedown of "beltway libertarian" conspiracy theories.