James Kirchik at The New Republic quotes lots of vile things from 1990s-vintage editions of the Ron Paul newsletter, presumably written by Paul himself. Questionable comments from those newsletters have been quoted out of context before, but these new quotes will likely prove indefensible.
5pm: The only response so far at LewRockwell.com is name-calling against Kirchik and TNR. Karen DeCoster calls Kirchik a "punk kid", but dares not mention (or doesn't know?) that Kirchik is gay (according to chatter on the Outright Libertarians list).
7pm: The Paul campaign repeats its standard response that Paul "denounce[s] such small-minded thoughts" and accepts "moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name". That response just doesn't cut it for the systematic and long-standing pattern revealed by Kirchik.
8pm: Reason's David Weigel transcribes his fleeting conversation with Ron Paul in a parking lot this afternoon about the TNR article. Paul dismisses it as "old news". I would indeed have been old news if Paul had months ago named who his newsletter writers were, and did all he could to get the newsletters out all at once. Instead, he let them come out on the day of the New Hampshire primary. Stupidity in 1980s is one thing; stupidity on the 2008 campaign trail is in a certain sense even less forgivable.
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Kirchik is openly gay, not that it matters at all. The newsletters were written by Lew. Ron Paul is failing to identify Lew as the writer because they are still friends.
Reason's David Weigel transcribes his fleeting conversation with Ron Paul in a parking lot this afternoon about the TNR article. Paul dismisses it as "old news". I would indeed have been old news if Paul had months ago named who his newsletter writers were, and did all he could to get the newsletters out all at once. Instead, he let them come out on the day of the New Hampshire primary. Stupidity in 1980s is one thing; stupidity on the 2008 campaign trail is in a certain sense even less forgivable.
He is loyal to his old friend.
The person responsible should step forward himself.
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