Reactions to Ron Paul on Meet the Press

Ron Paul was on Meet the Press on Sunday (transcript here). The horse-race obsessed mainstream media ignored many controversial subjects discussed and news reports following the show primarily centered around the fact that he continued to leave the door open a crack to run as a third party candidate. Matters of much greater substance, regardless of whether you agree with him or not, were barely mentioned in the media. These included abolishing the federal income tax, whether the Civil War was justified, his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and whether Iran poses a military threat to Israel.

As usual, it was left to the blogosphere to discuss the matters of substance, and most likely this discussion was reduced due to most of us being busy over the holiday weekend. Among blogs discussing the substance of the interview are Matthew Yglesias, The Agonist, OpEdNews and Poligazette.

The other topic which did come up, and which also did receive some media attention was the manner in which Paul seeks earmarks for his district. Paul typically requests that they be added to spending bills and then, in order to appear to preserve his purity, he votes against the bill. Paul supporters have come up with a number of justifications for this but I doubt their arguments convince anyone else. The manner in which Paul tries to have it both ways only makes him look more hypocritical.

Not surprisingly the recent accusations that Ron Paul has been meeting with white supremacists are making it into the mainstream media with this account at The New York Times Magazine. Lew Rockwell.com, which has consistently defended Paul against all allegations, hardly helps Paul’s cause by referring to everyone who opposes Paul as either communists or fascists, such as in its reference to the New York Times as the Stalin News. This only strengthens the view that Paul and his supporters are a bunch of extremists who are out of touch with reality.

As I’ve noted several times, the questions of a connection between Paul and white supremacists, along with neo-Nazis, are Paul’s own fault in light of the racist writings in his newsletter and Paul’s failure to return the contribution of Stormfront founder Don Black once this was identified. The frequency with which Paul’s supporters spam the internet with racist and anti-Semitic comments also adds to this perception even if Paul cannot necessarily be blamed for the views of his supporters. As long as Paul and his supporters fail to see what is wrong with their actions they verify suspicions regarding their lack of principles. Even if Paul himself does not share their views, his acceptance of such supporters is troubling enough.

6 Comments

  1. 1
    joshie says:

    What about us anti-nazi, pro-Israel Ron Paul supporters? Why does the media ignore his strong anti-fascist support?

  2. 2
    Paige says:

    Good God, Ron…

    Firstly, we have already addressed the allegations of him “meeting” with White Supremecists (through the post that someone made of the campaign’s FEC reports) that were made by Bill White, who countless sources have shown to be completely uncredible and a pathological liar. The people in the media who are reporting this are doing terrible and lazy journalism by not investigating the story fully. I posted a response on the Times comments page to the story. Go and read it, if it’s still up.

    With regards to earmarks, you are implying the same amount of misunderstanding of the issue as so many others are. Earmark requests don’t ADD anything to appropriations bills; they direct money that is already being appropriated (say, to departments or programs) to be spent on specific purposes. It is not like the money wouldn’t be spent at all, unless the appropriations bills were amended to cut the spending in the bill (which NEVER happens), if Ron Paul didn’t submit earmark requests. In fact, Article I, Section 8 dictates that Congress is to set appropriations guidelines, and if earmarks weren’t made, spending decisions would be made by the executive branch if there were no earmarks, the Constitutionality of which is quite questionable. So there is nothing hypocritical about him advocating for less government while submitting earmark requests in bills for his district. His district is just as entitled to earmarks as any other Congressman’s if the money is going to be spent anyways. If you need any doubt as to Dr. Paul’s purity as a libertarian and fiscal conservative, look through his voting record: not a single vote for an unbalanced budget, and he’s voted against the vast majority of appropriations bills in his time in Congress. (The last statistic I saw was that he’s voted against 160 of 166 spending bills in his latest go-round in Congres.)

    You have demonstrated with this post that you have absolutely no ability to cast Dr. Paul’s campaign in an objective light. You have gone from disagreeing with him on some things to calling him names to not even questioning the credibility of allegations (that have been demonstrated to be false) made by people who have demonstrated to have little to no credibility. This is truly unfortunate.

  3. 3
    Paige says:

    Aside from that, though: Merry Christmas!

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    Joshie,

    “What about us anti-nazi, pro-Israel Ron Paul supporters?”

    One message for all of you would be a quotation attributed to Edmund Burke: “All that is needed for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good men to remain silent.”

    “Why does the media ignore his strong anti-fascist support?”

    Considering how rarely Paul’s ties to extremism are mentioned in the media this is hardly an accurate reflection on his coverage. Paul’s media coverage for a candidate in single digits has generally been quite positive, overlooking many of these factors.

  5. 5
    Ron Chusid says:

    Paige,

    Calling Bill White a liar might be sufficient for Paul’s supporters, the accusations have neither been confirmed or refuted. Some peripheral issues have been refuted–which I have reported in other posts on this topic but White’s account has not been disproven. As I’ve said before, the accusations probably cannot be disproven considering how difficult it is to refute a negative. However it is ultimately Paul’s fault that such allegations have traction in light of his known connections to extremists and his unwillingness to take actions which most decent people would take such as returning the contribution from Don Black.

    “With regards to earmarks, you are implying the same amount of misunderstanding of the issue as so many others are.”

    No, you are making the same rationalizations that his supporters do. The very existence of earmarks helps fuel government spending. If there was really no problem with the earmarks, then why doesn’t Paul simply vote for the bills, considering that the money is spent as a result of Paul’s actions? He is trying to have it both ways when he proposes the money and then votes no. It might make his supporters happy, but to most he just likes like a hypocrite.

    “You have demonstrated with this post that you have absolutely no ability to cast Dr. Paul’s campaign in an objective light. You have gone from disagreeing with him on some things to calling him names to not even questioning the credibility of allegations (that have been demonstrated to be false) made by people who have demonstrated to have little to no credibility. This is truly unfortunate. ”

    Do you even know what objective means? To Paul supporters objective means positive reporting and ignoring the bad, or giving it a positive spin. My posts at this blog are far more objective than you are going to find most places. I’ve posted both about the positives of Paul’s views and the negatives. I have posts on the accusations against Paul which appear valid, as well as several posts debunking untrue claims about him.

    You have not presented a single fact in my post which is not true. It is a fact that Bill White made the accusations noted, and it is now a fact that the New York Times has picked this up. I made no comment as to the validity of White’s accusations as there is not proof either way. The reasons why these accusations are not ignored are also facts–Paul’s refusal to return Don Black’s contribution and the racist material in his newsletter.

    As for name calling, this is coming far more from the Paul supporters than anyone else. I call him hypocritical but I give a clear argument why. I call the material in his newsletter racist but only Paul’s supporters would claim that writing things such as that blacks are prone to violence is not racist. I’ve also noted Paul’s explanation in posts here that the racist writings were written by someone else under his byline–which is hardly a satisfactory answer.

    On the other hand it is quite common for Paul supporters to refer to anyone who says anything negative about Paul a liar. Claiming “You have demonstrated with this post that you have absolutely no ability to cast Dr. Paul’s campaign in an objective light” is for all practical purposes name calling. The defenses of Paul at Lew Rockwell are certainly based upon name calling. Considering the manner in which Paul supporters spam the blogosphere with name calling, as well as racist and anti-Semitic remarks, Paul supporters are in no position to accuse others of not being objective and calling people names.

  6. 6
    KYJurisDoctor says:

    Ron Paul’s comments on slaves and the Civil Rights Act bother me!

    Link

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