December 27th, 2011
Not all Paulistas are putting their hands to their ears and shouting lalalalalalalala as loudly as possible over the incendiary racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic newsletters that went out under his name and with his active promotion for most of a decade. Andrew Sullivan endorsed Rep. Ron Paul for the GOP presidential nomination because of his economic libertarianism and his refusal to support unnecessary foreign wars. Sullivan knew about those newsletters at the time, having read about them when they first came to light in 2008. But now Sullivan said that he sat down and re-read those newsletters again and decided that their existence makes Paul ineligible for the Presidency:
It seems to me that even though I don’t believe these old screeds reflect Paul’s own beliefs, his new level of prominence demands a new level of accountability, even on issues this old. If Paul did not write these newsletters, then he has an obligation to say if he knew who did, or conduct an investigation. He has had years to do this, and hasn’t. And here’s what you’ve persuaded me of in the last few days: a person who has that kind of bigotry directly printed under his name without a clear empirical explanation of why he is innocent cannot be an honorable president of the United States. The hatred of groups of people in those letters – however gussied up by shards of legitimate arguments – is too deep and vile to be attached to a leader of the entire country. It is far too divisive. The appearance of things matters; and until Paul explains why this appears so horrible, he cannot shrug off the burden of proof.
…the words and sentiments in those newsletters cannot attach themselves – even by mere appearance – to a potential president of this country. I see that now. Maybe my admiration for Paul’s courage and his extraordinary resistance to the authoritarianism and intolerance in his own party blinded me to this. But you can’t be both the solution and the problem. And so, until Paul fully explains this incident, in the kind of way Michael Tomasky recommends, I have to say there is an alternative, as I described at length in the endorsement: Jon Huntsman. He’s what my super-ego tells me is the right choice. My id remains with Ron. But I write with the rational part of my brain, or at least I try to.
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cowboy
December 27th, 2011
So predictable. I could have predicted Mr. Sullivan switching to Huntsman Jr.
But, I can derail Andrew’s endorsement of Huntsman Jr. (or Romney) by reminding him the Mormon (LDS) Church still has not explained nor apologized for its racist policies in the past. Maybe Jon was too young to understand the LDS dogma back in 1960s and 1970s and it’s unfair to peg Mr. Huntsman Jr. as a racist…but his religion is unapologetic to this day about its past racist history.
Paul Douglas
December 27th, 2011
Or what about the mormon church’s involvement in Proposition 8? There should be some ‘splainin to do there as well by Huntsman as well as Newt Romney.
Ben In Oakland
December 27th, 2011
Huntsman also supports DOMA as a good law that works.
Doesn’t work for me, Mr huntsman. You’re probably light years better than Paul, but if you can support DOMA, then you are still light years away in a backwater of the universe.
Rob in San Diego
December 27th, 2011
Sorry but I choose to be one with my hands on my ears, still voting for Ron Paul over Obama. Gay liberal and proud of it!
Non-Idiot
January 2nd, 2012
Jim Burroway you’re pathetic. You are not even trying to hide the fact that you are an Obama shill. If you even spent 5 minutes looking at 1)What Ron Paul has actually said or wrote himself (verified) and 2) His voting record you would see that he is one of the few candidates besides Gary Johnson or Ralph Nader (who liberals also hate, besides the fact that he’s a true progressive) that can actually fix this country. But no, you still have Obama’s message of hope stuck up your ass. How much hope has Obama given you? Another war? Having his PR machine start gearing up for Iran, in the EXACT same way it did for Iraq? The destruction of the Constitution with the passage of the Defense Authorization Act? The fact that Obama is against gay marriage, but won’t say it so that people like you follow him like sheep to the slaughter? Wake up. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Jim Burroway
January 2nd, 2012
Just today, Paul admitted to writing parts of the newsletters himself. He also claims that other people, people he won’t name wrote other parts. And he leaves us to guess which parts he wrote and which parts he didn’t write. And he leaves us to believe that he wants us to pay attention to some parts of his newsletters and not other parts. Because he today he agrees with some parts of his own newsletters but in hindsight finds “8-10 sentences of bad stuff.” Except it was way more than 8-10 sentences, which means he’s either still lying about the newsletters, or we will now have to guess which 8-10 sentences among the hundreds to chose from that consists of either anti-gay, racists, or anti-Semitic “bad stuff.”
So do you want to know what’s pathetic? It’s a man who won’t hold himself accountable to everything written in his name. A man who wants me to trust what he says except for when he doesn’t want me to trust what he says. A man who wants me to trust what is out there in his name, under his approval — after all, he was actively promoting the sale of his newsletters in 1995 and representing them as being reflective of his views — and sometimes even with his photo and over a likeness of his signature. Except for when he doesn’t.
If there’s a textbook definition of pathetic, that’s it. Paul has yet to come clean about how those passages ended up in a newsletter which, when he was actively selling them at the time he claimed he was writing and which he claimed represented his views. He now only says he didn’t write it (except for when he says he did write it), but won’t explain it any further. But what appears in those newsletters demands an explanation. A very thorough one. But he’s not giving one. Instead, he’s addressing them with the absolute minimum that he can “politically” get by with. After all, he doesn’t want to alienate the many fans who became his fans as a result of those newsletters, does he?
Everything I wrote is under my name and everything that is purported to have been written by my on this blog is mine. No one has to guess a damn thing, and unlike Paul, I will never run away from my own name. And unlike others, I will never plug fingers in my ears and scream lalalalalalalalalala as loudly as possible. And no, not even for Obama.
Timothy Kincaid
January 3rd, 2012
I must say that if Jim Burroway is an Obama shill, he’s a very clever one because he’s got me fooled. I only know the Burroway who was pretty pessimistic about Obama from the beginning, critical of his lack of leadership on DADT, and is still mocking of Obama’s “evolution” on marriage.
Finding Ron Paul to be a bit… ummm… peculiar does not make one an Obama shill.
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