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Statement From Former Ron Paul Staffer Causes More Problems For Rep.

People are clamoring over allegations that Ron Paul is a racist, homophobe and a bigot. These views come from excerpts and statements that Representative Paul made in newsletters that bore his name and a fundraising letter that bore his signature. Rep. Paul has claimed that he did not write those even though they bore his name.

Eric Dondero, a former senior aide to Rep Paul, has waded into this saying that:

Is Ron Paul a “racist.” In short, No. I worked for the man for 12 years, pretty consistently. I never heard a racist word expressed towards Blacks or Jews come out of his mouth. Not once. And understand, I was his close personal assistant. It’s safe to say that I was with him on the campaign trail more than any other individual, whether it be traveling to Fairbanks, Alaska or Boston, Massachusetts in the presidential race, or across the congressional district to San Antonio or Corpus Christi, Texas.

He has frequently hired blacks for his office staff, starting as early as 1988 for the Libertarian campaign. He has also hired many Hispanics, including his current District staffer Dianna Gilbert-Kile.

One caveat: He is what I would describe as “out of touch,” with both Hispanic and Black culture. Ron is far from being the hippest guy around. He is completely clueless when it comes to Hispanic and Black culture, particularly Mexican-American culture. And he is most certainly intolerant of Spanish and those who speak strictly Spanish in his presence, (as are a number of Americans, nothing out of the ordinary here.)

That is fine. Dondero goes on to say that Rep Paul is not an anti-Semite, though he is anti-Israeli. Dondero then goes on to write:

Is Ron Paul a homo-phobe? Well, yes and no. He is not all bigoted towards homosexuals. He supports their rights to do whatever they please in their private lives. He is however, personally uncomfortable around homosexuals, no different from a lot of older folks of his era.

By now, everyone is quite aware that Rep Paul is uncomfortable sharing bathroom facilities with gay men. We all have groups of people we are uncomfortable around. Personally, I can’t stand being around men all that much, but that is me. Finally, Dondero writes:

If you take anything from this lengthy statement, I would hope that it is this final story about the Afghanistan vote, that the liberal media chooses to completely ignore, because it doesn’t fit their template, is what you will report.

If Ron Paul should be slammed for anything, it’s not some silly remarks he’s made in the past in his Newsletters. It’s over his simply outrageously horrendous views on foreign policy, Israel, and national security for the United States. His near No vote on Afghanistan. That is the big scandal. And that is what should be given 100 times more attention from the liberal media, than this Newsletter deal.

Alright, can we please kill the whole ‘liberal media’ garbage. The media is not overly liberal. The media is driven by something else entirely- the headline. The media needs salacious stories in order to get ratings, get web hits, get readers. The media is driven by the free market- something that Ron Paul claims to be a supporter of, and something that we can believe that Dondero is a supporter of as well. A story about Ron Paul’s newsletters is more salacious than a story about his vote on Afghanistan or his views on Israel- views that some will see as being anti-Semitic. Not all of the media- including LezGetReal- have seen the newsletter story as having much substance, but we have had to report on it anyway. We just reported on it as a distraction or talked about it from a different point of view.

Now, let us assume that Dondero is correct and that everything he has said is true. If Representative Paul is not a racist, anti-Semite or homophobe, then there are two possibilities left. He is either lazy and stupid or he is an unprincipled opportunist.

If the first is true, then what happened with the newsletters is that he never took the time to even glance over what the person claiming to be him in the newsletter wrote, and that did not bother him. He did not think through the consequences of his actions, and did not consider how it made him look. To give you some idea, I publish under my name press releases. Often, these are unedited because, in all honesty, there is usually little that I can add or subtract. I read every single press release that goes out. As the owner and publisher of LGR, what goes out is my responsibility. This means that either Ron Paul was too trusting of the people who wrote for him, which he should never be; he was too lazy to be bothered with the extra work involved in reading the pieces before they went to press under his name, which is not a good idea; or he was too stupid to realize the eventual consequences of his actions.

There is another possibility, of course, and that is that Dr. Ron Paul is an unprincipled opportunist who decided to engage in a bunch of race-baiting, homophobic, and anti-Semitic writing in order to get readers. In other words, Ron Paul did not believe a word that he or his staff wrote, but rather used it to make money from those who did. That is actually rather worse since it means that he was willing to manipulate people into giving him money. He was profiting off of the hatreds of other. It is one thing to actually believe what you are writing, it is another to use it to make money without believing it at all.

You know, all Ron Paul had to do in the end was say that he had once been rather racist, but changed over time. That would have worked.

H/T Right Wing News