Ron Paul’s disqualifying racial ignorance

GOP pols and pundits now attack the surging libertarian's racist newsletters, but what took them so long?

VIDEO

By Joan Walsh

(Credit: Associated Press)

Topics:Ron Paul, William Kristol, 2012 Elections

I have a shard of sympathy for Rep. Ron Paul and his supporters, now that the former gadfly presidential candidate looks capable of an Iowa caucus victory. The sudden attention to Paul’s ugly newsletters, especially on the right, is a little suspicious, since they aren’t news; their racism and anti-Semitism were exposed in 2008, and even earlier.

In January 2008 the New Republic ran the most thorough exposé of the hateful opinions published under Paul’s name – that the Los Angeles riots stopped only “when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks,” that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “seduced underage girls and boys” and the national holiday to honor him was “Hate Whitey Day,” plus various screeds blaming crime on African-Americans – and Reason revealed that Paul mined far-right groups like Holocaust denier Willis Carto’s Liberty Lobby to build his mailing list. But the newsletter controversy, along with Paul’s hateful friends, drew the attention and wrath of mainstream conservative opinion leaders only when Paul began to surge in the polls.

Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard got the writer of TNR’s 2008 piece, James Kirchick, to reprise his old story and update it. Subbing for Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn denounced Paul’s “sheer stupid half-witted parochialism” as well as his attack on King as a pedophile. Steyn argues that Paul’s strategy of insisting he didn’t know his newsletters published racist garbage meant he “shouldn’t be entrusted with the government of the United States.” Now Newt Gingrich is saying he won’t vote for Paul in the unlikely event that Paul is the GOP nominee facing President Obama next November.

But the GOP’s belated denunciation of Paul’s newsletter fiasco feels insincere, and that’s because it is. Paul’s biggest sin on the establishment right is his rejection of America’s wars of empire as well as its staunch military and economic support for Israel, and the higher he rises in the polls, the more important it is, especially for the neoconservative wing of the GOP, to defeat him.

Paul’s bracing foreign-policy stands led Andrew Sullivan to endorse him, with reservations, for the GOP nomination. But the snowballing scandal around his newsletter racism led Sullivan to retract his endorsement on Monday. “I just cannot see how he can be such a president without explaining away the newsletters convincingly,” he wrote, while adding, “I don’t think he’s a racist; in fact, I think he’s one of the least racially aware politicians I’ve come across in a long while.”

Sullivan remains too quick to accept Paul’s assurances that he didn’t write or authorize the newsletters’ most loathsome views, and that he denounces the hateful racial and anti-Semitic views they sometimes expressed. Even if we accept Paul’s excuses – and I don’t entirely – it’s shocking that he didn’t have anyone around him to clue him in to the hateful views going out under his name. Friends don’t let friends send out racist newsletters, unless said friends aren’t entirely shocked by such views. I also think being “one of the least racially aware politicians I’ve come across” is problematic in someone who wants to be president of a multiracial society still divided by race.

But in fact, Paul’s relationship with his newsletters’ racism is even more complicated than Sullivan allows. Paul’s story about the newsletters has shifted over the years. As Think Progress outlined Tuesday, there was a time when the Texas libertarian tried to defend some of the racist views they expressed, back during his 1996 congressional campaign.

He told the Houston Chronicle that the newsletters’ comments about African-Americans reflected “current events and statistical reports of the time.” He defended a remark about black street criminals being particularly “fleet of foot” by noting that “if you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them.” Asked about a newsletter calling the late Rep. Barbara Jordan a “moron” and a “fraud,” Paul said “such opinions represented our clear philosophical difference.”

Most important, Paul didn’t claim that someone else had authored the newsletters back then. He didn’t give that excuse until a 2001 interview with the Texas Monthly, when he told a reporter: “I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren’t really written by me.” And it wasn’t until 2008 when he explicitly denounced the newsletters’ racist views, saying, “I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.” Now he’s insisting not only that he didn’t write any of those words but that he never even read them. I’m sorry, but that strains credulity. Think Progress also notes that Paul was the only member of Congress to vote against awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. In my opinion, that singular, stubborn, mean-spirited vote alone should disqualify him from being president.

I’m glad that GOP politicians and thought leaders are finally speaking out against the racist views in Paul’s newsletters, whether he authored them or negligently allowed them to go out under his name. But excuse me if I don’t take their sudden horror at racism and racial dog whistles entirely seriously. Virtually the entire party has tolerated the crude Birther hoax, the claim that our first black president wasn’t born in this country and is ineligible to be president, which seems at least partly inspired by racial hostility. Gingrich has called Obama “the food stamp president” and denounced his nonexistent “Kenyan anti-colonial mentality.”

Only last week on Fox, the Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell – a Ron Paul critic, by the way – attacked MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for saying Newt Gingrich looks like a “car bomber” by asking what would happen if a Fox host said Obama looked like “a skinny ghetto crackhead.” Lest anyone think that was merely a rhetorical device, Bozell added, “which, by the way, you might want to say that Barack Obama does.” There’s been no rush on the right to attack Bozell.

So yes, Ron Paul deserves to be denounced for many of the views expressed in his paranoid, racist, anti-Semitic, pro-militia, anti-government newsletters. But he deserved to be denounced for those views long before he became the front-runner in Iowa. I am enjoying the spectacle of Bill Kristol, by the way, the man who brought us Sarah Palin, once again taking to the pages of his magazine to beg someone, anyone, to enter the GOP primary and save him from Mitt Romney. These people have wrecked their party, and they’d wreck the country if given a chance.

I discussed the GOP presidential primary mess on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” Tuesday night:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

: Joan Walsh is Salon's editor at large. More Joan Walsh

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Why Ron Paul is still relevant

Those of us who hate him need to understand those who love him

By Gary Weiss

He's wacky. He's wise. (Credit: AP/Robert F. Bukaty)

Topics:2012 Elections, Ron Paul, Editor's Picks

These are depressing days if, as I do, you don’t care much for Ron Paul.

His strong showing against Mitt Romney in Maine is further proof that the libertarian Texas congressman is not going away. So this is as good a time as any for those of us who view him as an off-the-charts extremist to come to grips with two larger questions presented by his candidacy: Why do so many people like this guy?

And even: Do Paul’s followers have a point?

My credentials in the anti-Paul camp are unassailable, and I have the hate mail to prove it. I haven’t changed my mind about his views. I still think that he’s a phony populist, because his positions would favor the 1 percent more than any other Republican candidate. I haven’t changed my mind that his “end the Fed” campaign is diversionary, and that his advocacy of the gold standard would put us in another Great Depression were it ever implemented. I’m concerned by the cult-like fervor of so many of his followers. I don’t buy his excuses for the racism that appears in newsletters that were published under his name.

But that doesn’t mean that those of us who aren’t won over by Paul should just dismiss the guy as a nut, which seems to be a popular practice in news organizations. I don’t think he’s been terribly forthcoming, especially on those newsletters, but you can’t deny that Paul has a number of positive qualities that moderates and liberals need to understand and appreciate, in order to effectively counter his views:

1. He has integrity. I grimace as I write this, but it’s true. Perhaps not compared to Mother Teresa, but certainly he does when stacked up against pretty much any other politician I know, including more than a few Democrats. (He obviously has more integrity than Mitt Romney, but that’s not saying much.) His consistent dedication to the same ideals, the same causes — obsessions, actually — cannot be seriously disputed. A perusal of his books, House of Representatives floor speeches and miscellaneous bloviating over the years shows that the man has been hammering away at the same isolationist/monetary/no-government/”Constitution” themes for decades. He has opposed the war on drugs for decades, just as for years he has opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mind you, he’s not always internally consistent, in the sense that he takes positions that stray from the libertarian ideal: taking earmarks for his district and stridently opposing abortion. But on most issues you can expect that his rigidity on matters of ideology will shine through, no matter how politically inexpedient.

2. He’s likable. Paul doesn’t give off mean-S.O.B. vibes like Newt Gingrich. He’s rumpled, and walks with the head-forward bad posture of a slightly distracted junior college professor, shuffling along, late for his next class. He doesn’t make a big show of bullying debate moderators as Gingrich has been doing (though he has walked out on an interview). Though his positions are even more uncompassionately conservative than Romney’s, he comes across with considerably more warmth (again, not saying much). His delivery on the stump is folksy, not fanatical. He talks about cutting $1 trillion out of the federal budget like your family doctor telling you he’s got to take out a gallstone. It’s good for you. It won’t hurt for long. Paul is often compared to the old man in the neighborhood who shoos the kids off his lawn, but he reminds me a lot more of Sen. Eugene McCarthy, the antiwar Democrat of the 1968 campaign. He doesn’t have McCarthy’s urbane wit, but that’s asking a bit much.

3. He’s smart, and in a nice way, unlike Gingrich or Romney. He doesn’t lecture; he doesn’t talk down to people. I think this explains a great deal of his appeal to the young. He’s this generation’s Mr. Wizard, the affable TV science teacher who taught baby boomers how refrigerators operate and how to get electricity out of a spool of wire and a magnet. Ron Paul’s Mr. Wizard character similarly reduces complex issues that people don’t understand into simple concepts amenable to simple solutions, such as abolishing a good part of the federal government and getting rid of the income tax. Yet he is able to embrace these off-the-charts positions in a manner that doesn’t make them seem extreme. It takes a genius to do that, and I don’t mean that in a nice way.

4. He knows the American people are fed up. He’s struck a chord with a lot of people I respect. His talk about American “empire” makes many a progressive feel warm and fuzzy. More than any other candidate — including President Obama — he understands how tired Americans are of being underemployed, exploited by the big banks and sent to engage in nation-building overseas. Sure, his policies would entirely wipe out regulation of banks, but he gets away with it from sheer force of personality. (And yes, I can already see the comments — the hedge fund managers and bankers support Romney. Sure they do: because he’s going to get the nomination.)

Paul’s views on foreign policy hearken back to the Republican isolationists of the 1930s, the Robert Tafts and Gerald Nyes, and he similarly taps into the latent Heartland “fortress America” mentality. He cannily exploits the paranoia that has long characterized American politics, and the deep-rooted dislike of foreign entanglements that has been dormant for decades. There’s an aroma of the old America First movement to much of what he says about foreign policy, and that’s scary to people who’ve read a lot about the 1930s, and know that we’d all be speaking German today if the Firsters had gained power. But they didn’t. Most people don’t give a hoot about what happened five years ago, much less 70.

5. He talks some sense. That’s what Paul haters have had a lot of trouble digesting: He’s an extremist on most issues who makes a lot of sense on foreign policy. He’s the only antiwar candidate in 2012. Even people who don’t agree with him totally on foreign policy have to admit that his opposition to the U.S. getting involved in Libya is looking smarter as every day passes, as do his views on staying out of the maelstrom in Syria. Sure, it’s insane for progressives to support a candidate who wants to turn back the clock on the New Deal and Great Society, as I pointed out a few weeks ago. But Paul has outsmarted us. He knows that dismay about Iraq and Afghanistan is strong enough to overcome any lingering doubts about his foreign policy views among a staggering number of people who’d otherwise find him repugnant.

The solution, I think, is the same one that applies to the spreading influence of another extremist who has gone mainstream, Ayn Rand. What’s needed is not shunning but debate, and an understanding that his positions need to be viewed as part of an organic whole. Anyone who reads “Atlas Shrugged” knows that laissez-faire capitalism is just part of the Randian package. So are atheism and a lot of other concepts that people in the Tea Party don’t always recognize when they brandish those “Who is John Galt?” posters.

It’s the same with Ron Paul. If you swallow his foreign policy, you guzzle down laissez-faire capitalism as well, whether you like it or not. So, sure, he makes sense on Syria, but he has one of the worst records on the environment and global warming of any member of Congress. That’s just one part of the price tag. It’s a long list.

Politics is compromise, and so do the choices that voters have to make. Those of us who oppose Ron Paul believe that his positions are too extreme to warrant compromise. But we need to understand why so many reasonable people feel differently.

: Gary Weiss is a journalist and the author of "Ayn Rand Nation: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul," to be published by St. Martin's Press on February 28, 2012. Follow him on Twitter @gary_weiss. More Gary Weiss

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The screwed generation: Libertarian, not liberal

Ron Paul's popularity has doubled in the past four years for one simple reason

By A.J. Dellinger

Ron Paul and friends (Credit: Reuters/Joel Page)

Topics:F**cked, Ron Paul, 2012 Elections

There is an old adage that says, “If you’re young and conservative you have no heart, if you’re old and liberal you have no brain.” The idea is that young people tend to make decisions more on idealistic views or out of passionate attempts at charity and altruism. While there is some truth to that for Generation Y (meaning people born in the ’80s and ’90s), the results are manifesting themselves in a totally different way.

We are the generation that continues to pay into Social Security with every paycheck but suspects we may never see the benefits of it. We are the recipients of degrees that don’t mean much from educational institutions that teach less and cost more. We are the casualties of wars that have gone on for over half of the lifetime of 2012′s first-time voters. In short, we are the screwed generation. The decisions of those before us has left us with an uncertain future and little opportunity to fix things through traditional means.

The ever-present skepticism of youth is even greater within the collective consciousness of Generation Y. And how could it not be? With our first real chance to make a splash in the world, we got behind Barack Obama in overwhelming numbers. He was a candidate who promised progress in every issue that the under-30 crowd found to be important: end the wars, defend gay rights and provide universal healthcare to the American people. While he’s made some steps forward, it’s been slow moving. Meanwhile, the House and Senate have deliberated on bills that would censor our voices on the Internet, a medium on which my generation relies heavily for communication and pretty much everything else. Just as we organized online to support Obama in 2008, we organized the protests against legislation like SOPA and PIPA, and the Occupy Wall Street movement uses the Internet to broadcast its events and actions.

So when the traditional liberal means of protecting ourselves — uniting behind the government to promote action that benefits the common good — no longer serves our best interest, we begin to serve our own. We have a new set of morals that have been established because the old ones were no longer cutting it.

Ask any kid on the street their opinion on gay marriage. I can almost guarantee you they’ll be in favor of it, or at the very least aren’t opposed to it. Ask the same about abortion and you’ll find a similar amount of permissiveness. If they aren’t in possession of marijuana, they probably know someone who is. This is what we bring to the table: a lenient, open-minded approach to personal decisions. It’s reflected in almost every part of our culture. We’re decidedly less religious, with only 44 percent of our age bracket finding religion to be important. That doesn’t mean there aren’t still many people of faith in our generation, but even those who believe are more understanding of those who don’t. We’re a generation that pirates television shows, movies, games and music, but will show up to more concerts and support independent artists and the media we love. Many of the universal views of our generation come down to holding a permissive attitude toward the behaviors of individuals.

The caveat that comes with this leniency is personal responsibility. This is a cautionary message that this generation is more than happy to deal with. We’re willing to grant people the right to live their lives however they please, but if they mess up it’s on them to fix it.

This is why libertarianism — and the Ron Paul candidacy — has been so appealing to young voters. Paul ended his candidacy for president in 2008 polling at about 6.5 percent nationally. From the moment the campaign trail opened back up for a 2012 run, his support has increased steadily, and he currently sits at around 12 percent in national polls. He’s also continually dominated the youth vote in nearly every primary. It’s no fluke that the old guy preaching liberty and personal freedom is getting the attention of the youngest demographic, either. Because Paul supports sending social issues down to the states, he’s no longer having those discussions; he’d rather talk economics.

This is what makes the Ron Paul movement truly important. He’s not the perfect candidate, but watch any event that he shows up to in any given state. His audience is overwhelmingly made up of college-age kids who happily applaud at ideas like a 0 percent income tax, abolishing the Federal Reserve, and reinstituting the gold standard (or something equivalent) that would put value behind the U.S. dollar again. Not only do they cheer, but they understand. These are concepts that aren’t lost on them, but rather resonate in them. These are the conversations that we’re willing to have, and the ideas we’re willing to debate about.

The fact that there are still discussions between contending candidates about whether gay marriage should be legal or if women should have the right to have an abortion is shameful in the eyes of the youth vote. We’re done with those debates. There may not be a total consensus, but it’s pretty clear where the majority of our generation stands. Marriage equality falls under basic civil rights and there shouldn’t be a need to debate such right any longer. Let’s be honest, when we’re facing a domestic and global recession, high unemployment and a blunder-filled tax code, social issues act only as a distraction to engage the “religious right” and the “hippie left.” By jettisoning social issues, Paul is able to have a conversation about fiscal policy with a bunch of kids who are growing up in a new economy. With Paul, we’re able to talk about what we’re willing to support and where we want our tax dollars to be spent.

We still vote with our heart; it’s just in a slightly different place. We’d rather bring home our troops from overseas and save those lives while spending that money to establish a universal healthcare system that will save even more. This isn’t necessarily because we believe the government should take care of us, it’s because everyone deserves to be healthy and the powers that be before us mangled the system so badly that it’s becoming impossible to afford. This is an example of our generation trying to take care of our own as much as it is trying to create change. While the concept of universal healthcare may be defined as “liberal,” it’s a fairly libertarian approach of non-interventionism and personal rights that brings us there.

It’s a compassion for the lives of our cohort combined with an understanding of personal responsibility that defines the ideals of this generation. We’re still “liberal,” we still may vote with our hearts, but we do it out of the belief that we have the freedom to make those choices and live with them. Ron Paul might drop from the sight of the media after the election but his ideas will continue to boil. If our conversation about fiscal reform starts to reshape our economy, we will spearhead sweeping social change.

: AJ Dellinger is a freelance writer who blogs at ajrambling.com. Follow him on Twitter @ajdell. More A.J. Dellinger

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Our selective stance on bigotry

Some of Paul's stances are odious. But our racist drug war and Islamophobic invasions are equally offensive

By David Sirota

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign stop Wednesday in West Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman) (Credit: AP)

Topics:Ron Paul, 2012 Elections, Race

If they have any value at all anymore, presidential election campaigns at least remain larger-than-life mirrors reflecting back painful truths about our society. As evidence, ponder the two-sided debate over Republican candidate Ron Paul and bigotry.

One camp cites Paul’s hate-filled newsletters and his libertarian opposition to civil rights regulations as evidence that he aligns with racists. As the esteemed scholar Tim Wise puts it: This part of Paul’s record proves that he represents “the reactionary, white supremacist, Social Darwinists of this culture, who believe … the police who dragged sit-in protesters off soda fountain stools for trespassing on a white man’s property were justified in doing so, and that the freedom of department store owners to refuse to let black people try on clothes in their dressing rooms was more sacrosanct than the right of black people to be treated like human beings.”

The other camp tends to acknowledge those ugly truths about Paul, but then points out that the Texas congressman has been one of the only politicians 1) fighting surveillance, indefinite detention and due-process-free assassination policies almost exclusively aimed at minorities; 2) opposing wars that often seem motivated by rank Islamophobia; and 3) railing against the bigotry of a drug war that disproportionately targets people of color. Summarizing this part of Paul’s record, the Atlantic Monthly’s Conor Friedersdorf has written: “When it comes to America’s most racist or racially fraught policies” affecting the world today, “Paul is arguably on the right side of all of them (while) his opponents are often on the wrong side.”

So which side is right? Both of them, and thanks to that powerful oxymoron, Paul has become a mirror reflecting back our own problematic biases. Specifically, his candidacy is showing that the conventional definition of intolerable bigotry is disturbingly narrow — and embarrassingly selective.

This reality is best demonstrated by those voters who say they detest Paul not because of his extreme economic ideas, but because they feel his record represents an unacceptable form of racism. These folks will likely tell you that their alleged commitment to policies promoting racial equality has moved them to support Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, politicians who, of course, support bigoted civil liberties atrocities, Islamophobic foreign invasions and a racist drug war.

In making such a choice, then, these voters are tacitly embracing the definition of unacceptable bigotry as only hate speech (Paul’s newsletters) and opposition to civil rights laws (Paul’s odious position), but not also various forms of institutional bigotry that their favored candidates support and that Paul has fought to end. Incredibly, this selective definition asks us to ignore many of the most destructive tenets of what legal scholar Michelle Alexander’s celebrated book calls “The New Jim Crow.” And yet, as the reaction to Paul proves, it is precisely this definition that pervades so much of American society.

To be clear: Noting this hypocrisy is not meant to urge a vote for Paul (I’m not a Paul supporter), nor does it absolve those Paul fans who wholly ignore the objectionable parts of their candidate’s record on race. Instead, it is simply meant to argue that if we’re going to have a long overdue discussion about bigotry, then let’s have an honest conversation about all forms of bigotry — not our current talking-points-driven screamfest that rightly criticizes one kind of prejudice but wrongly tolerates other forms of prejudice that are often just as destructive.

Perpetuating that kind of naked bait-and-switchery may help one set of candidates and hurt another in a given presidential campaign, but it does nothing to advance the cause of equality in America.

: David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com. More David Sirota

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Sirota talks Ron Paul on Current TV

The Salon contributor explains why the Texas Republican could be a better general election bet than Romney

VIDEO

By Salon Staff

Topics:Ron Paul

Despite his impressive showing in New Hampshire, the media continues to dismiss Rep. Ron Paul as “unelectable.” In an appearance on “The Young Turks,” Salon writer David Sirota argues that the Texas Republican, given his strong support among independents, could be a better nominee for the Republican party than Mitt Romney. Watch here:

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Paul’s damning effect on foreign policy

His anti-Semitism-tinged opposition to an Iran war makes it easier for neocons to dismiss legitimate objections

By Gene Lyons

Ron Paul (Credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)

Topics:Ron Paul, 2012 Elections, Iran

Hey, sailor, just how strange a political bedfellow have you got in mind?

That’s the question raised by the suggestion in certain quarters that the real progressive in the 2012 presidential contest may be Texas Rep. Ron Paul. Democrats who fail to acknowledge this brilliant insight are alleged to be either blinded by partisanship or actively in league with that warmonger and baby-killer President Obama.

The latest rationalization by Salon’s David Sirota involves distinguishing between the powers of the president as commander in chief and those requiring the cooperation of Congress. That President Paul would move to abolish Social Security and Medicare and repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964 isn’t supposed to matter because he couldn’t do so unilaterally, while President Obama could presumably ignore the War Powers Act (as some allege he did in Libya) plunging the nation into war “with the stroke of a pen.”

Of course, so can any president. But hold that thought.

Meanwhile, anybody who questions the character and judgment of a politician who until fairly recently peddled “The Original Famous Ron Paul Survival Kit” in his eponymous newsletter isn’t playing fair.

How it worked was you sent them a check or money order in (doomed) U.S. currency, and they sent you a WWII Army ammo box filled with silver coins for “hand-to-hand” commerce after U.N. troops have seized control of the United States. Back when I was a lad, you could only get bargains like that from tiny ads in the back pages of DC Comics.

But I digress. Hasn’t the Great Man renounced the race baiting and conspiracy mongering in the newsletter he supposedly never read?

“Just kidding!” Paul said. You know, like a junior high school girl.

I’m like, whatever.

But at least one aspect of the pro-Paul argument is worth unpacking further if only to show why embracing his candidacy is such a terrible idea. I take Glenn Greenwald’s point that nobody ever gets exactly what they want in a political candidate. To anybody not completely blinded by partisanship, there are always tradeoffs to be made, tactical silences to be observed, and fools to be suffered, if not gladly, at least without rancor.

To me, at least, the futile and destructive Drug War is one such. It’s like Roaring Twenties all over again, only worse. Alas, no Democrat, and certainly no black or Latino Democrat, can afford to touch it. So Obama gets a pass.

Anybody who tries can probably come up with a dozen examples of his own. Sometimes, you’ve just got to hold your nose and vote.

But let’s talk war and peace, as Paul boosters insist.

Recently, I wrote about Paul’s apostasy regarding Iran. In a GOP debate, Paul aptly compared election-year bombast about the alleged Iranian nuclear threat to the 2003 propaganda campaign that drove the U.S. to invade Iraq.

“Even when he’s right, as on bombing Iran,” I wrote, “he’s wrong. (Hint: it’s about the Jews.)”

Numerous Paul loyalists angrily seconded the motion. “Have you ever questioned,” one wrote, “why Jews pop up in every major national swindle and tragedy: 9/11, TARP, Wall Street swindles, AIPAC, illegal wars, Goldman Sachs, The FED, ADAA, financial crises, etc? It is not a real conspiracy because they are doing it in plain sight … I think you are either a traitor or just another dumb American.”

Nice, huh? While he’s often cagey about how he expresses it, Ron Paul’s whole history as a conspiracy theorist is right out of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” — the 19th century forgery that’s kept anti-Semites buzzing for generations.

Here’s a second thinker in the Paul tradition: “Zionists dominate many of the world’s centers of power, wealth, and media … plundering the wealth and assets of nations … depriving peoples of their freedoms and destroying their cultures and human values by spreading their nexus of corruption.”

Actually, that’s Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also a sometime Holocaust denier, in a speech at Tehran’s Sharif University in 2009.

Reader Mel Birge of Portland, Ore., argues that’s precisely why Paul makes such a terrible spokesman. Complaining of “sitting in synagogue for the last dozen years listening to pseudo Middle East experts give the same frantic talk about the danger of Iran nukes and how the U.S. must stop it,” he believes such a war “is no way in the United States’ interest.”

But he also thinks Paul’s “anti-Semitic paranoia allows AIPAC, the neocons and their fellow travelers to paint the entire Iran war opposition with the Ron Paul brush. That’s the danger of Ron Paul that you should speak of: He snuffs out substantive discussions on Iran. The media feasts on him and the neocons love it because he’s his own straw man.”

I think that’s exactly right.

However, Birge also wonders, “Where’s Obama saying, ‘I was elected on getting us out of Middle East wars. I’m not starting another’?”

Well, we’ll see, won’t we?

: Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com. More Gene Lyons