Ron Paul Is Finished

The New Republic today dug up more of Ron Paul's loathsome old newsletters. They are almost unimaginably offensive and no one is immune as the newsletters attack gays, blacks and Jews with equal relish. From the lengthy New Republic post:

The newsletters were particularly obsessed with AIDS, "a politically protected disease thanks to payola and the influence of the homosexual lobby," and used it as a rhetorical club to beat gay people in general. In 1990, one newsletter approvingly quoted "a well-known Libertarian editor" as saying, "The ACT-UP slogan, on stickers plastered all over Manhattan, is 'Silence = Death.' But shouldn't it be 'Sodomy = Death'?" Readers were warned to avoid blood transfusions because gays were trying to "poison the blood supply." "Am I the only one sick of hearing about the 'rights' of AIDS carriers?" a newsletter asked in 1990.

That same year, citing a Christian-right fringe publication, an item suggested that "the AIDS patient" should not be allowed to eat in restaurants and that "AIDS can be transmitted by saliva," which is false. Paul's newsletters advertised a book, Surviving the AIDS Plague--also based upon the casual-transmission thesis--and defended "parents who worry about sending their healthy kids to school with AIDS victims." Commenting on a rise in AIDS infections, one newsletter said that "gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense," adding: "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

Referring to a one-time movement by black activists to rename New York City after Martin Luther King, the newsletter suggests these alternative names: Welfaria, Zooville, Rapetown, Dirtburg, and Lazyopolis.

These latest revelations will surely be the end of Ron Paul, no matter how he tries to spin the authorship of these pieces. And just last night I watched in disgust as Paul received a fawning reception from Jay Leno on the Tonight Show.

For his part, Ron Paul endorser Andrew Sullivan isn't convinced that Paul wrote the pieces, saying, "Do these sound like Ron Paul to you? I've listened to him speak a great deal these past few months and either he has had a personality transplant or he didn't write this." Sullivan adds, "I've supported Paul for what I believe are honorable reasons: his brave resistance to the enforced uniformity of opinion on the Iraq war, his defense of limited constitutional government, his libertarianism, his sincerity. If there is some other agenda lurking beneath all this, we deserve to know. It's up to Ron Paul now to clearly explain and disown these ugly, vile, despicable tracts from the past."

What an "ugly, vile, despicable" place we've come to when a man like Ron Paul is the top recipient of Republican campaign donations. Just when you think we've hit rock bottom, somebody digs another hole.