Ron Paul claims that he is not the author of racist comments published under his own name in his newsletter in Texas, back in the 1990's.  This issue has reared it's ugly head again in the last couple of days, and Ron Paul and his supporters are in overdrive trying to deny the allegations that Ron Paul is a closet racist, and that the columns in question were written by someone else and Paul wasn't aware of their bigoted content.

Well, they are right about one thing -- Ron Paul is not a "closet" racist, he is in fact a rather open one, or at least WAS until he started trying to remake himself as a good little libertarian for this election.

Here's a sample list of excerpts from news stories during the 1996 campaign, where Ron Paul and his staff DEFENDED and accepted credit for racist commentaries -- not just against blacks, but against Jews as well -- in his newsletters.

Dallas Morning News, 5-22-96:

Dr. Ron Paul, a Republican congressional candidate from Texas, wrote in his political newsletter in 1992 that 95 percent of the black men in Washington, D.C., are "semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

He also wrote that black teenagers can be "unbelievably fleet of foot." [...]

Dr. Paul, who is running in Texas' 14th Congressional District, defended his writings in an interview Tuesday. He said they were being taken out of context.

"It's typical political demagoguery," he said. "If people are interested in my character ... come and talk to my neighbors." [...]

According to a Dallas Morning News review of documents circulating among Texas Democrats, Dr. Paul wrote in a 1992 issue of the Ron Paul Political Report:  "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be."

Dr. Paul, who served in Congress in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said Tuesday that he has produced the newsletter since 1985 and distributes it to an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers. A phone call to the newsletter's toll-free number was answered by his campaign staff. [...]

Dr. Paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns. He said they should be read and quoted in their entirety to avoid misrepresentation. [...]

"If someone challenges your character and takes the interpretation of the NAACP as proof of a man's character, what kind of a world do you live in?" Dr. Paul asked.

In the interview, he did not deny he made the statement about the swiftness of black men.

"If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them," Dr. Paul said.

He also said the comment about black men in the nation's capital was made while writing about a 1992 study produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank based in Virginia.

Citing statistics from the study, Dr. Paul then concluded in his column: "Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

"These aren't my figures," Dr. Paul said Tuesday. "That is the assumption you can gather from" the report.

Houston Chronicle, 5-23-96:

Paul, a Republican obstetrician from Surfside, said Wednesday he opposes racism and that his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." [...]

Paul also wrote that although "we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational.

Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."

A campaign spokesman for Paul said statements about the fear of black males mirror pronouncements by black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has decried the spread of urban crime.

Paul continues to write the newsletter for an undisclosed number of subscribers, the spokesman said.

Writing in the same 1992 edition, Paul expressed the popular idea that government should lower the age at which accused juvenile criminals can be prosecuted as adults.

He added, "We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."

Paul also asserted that "complex embezzling" is conducted exclusively by non-blacks.

"What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" he wrote.

Austin American-Statesman, 5-23-96:

"Dr. Paul is being quoted out of context," [Paul spokesman Michael] Sullivan said.  "It's like picking up War and Peace and reading the fourth paragraph on Page 481 and thinking you can understand what's going on." [...]

Also in 1992, Paul wrote, "Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions."

Sullivan said Paul does not consider people who disagree with him to be sensible.  And most blacks, Sullivan said, do not share Paul's views.  The issue is political philosophy, not race, Sullivan said.

"Polls show that only about 5 percent of people with dark-colored skin support the free market, a laissez faire economy, an end to welfare and to affirmative action," Sullivan said. [...]

"You have to understand what he is writing.  Democrats in Texas are trying to stir things up by using half-quotes to impugn his character," Sullivan said.  "His writings are intellectual.  He assumes people will do their own research, get their own statistics, think for themselves and make informed judgments."

Washington Post, 5-26-96:

Paul, an obstetrician from Surfside, Tex., denied he is a racist and charged Austin lawyer Charles "Lefty" Morris, his Democratic opponent, with taking his 1992 writings out of context.

"Instead of talking about the issues, our opponent has chosen to lie and try to deceive the people of the 14th District," said Paul spokesman Michael Sullivan, who added that the excerpts were written during the Los Angeles riots when "Jesse Jackson was making the same comments."

"Ron knows our society and our nation has done some horrible things to the black community, which has pushed a majority of young black men in some areas, in Washington, D.C., for example, into criminal activities," Sullivan said.

Dallas Morning News, 7-25-96:

Dr. Paul, who faces Mr. Morris in the 14th District race for the U.S. House, dismissed the criticism as "name-calling and race-baiting." [...]

In a written statement, Dr. Paul said, "Repeated attempts by my liberal opponent to reduce the campaign to name-calling and race-baiting is just more of the same old garbage we expect from his camp and will not deter me from continuing to address the real issues."

Dr. Paul said his opinions about Ms. Jordan, who died earlier this year, "represented our clear philosophical difference."

Roll Call, 7-29-96:

In a statement, Paul said he had "labored to conduct a campaign based upon the issues that are vital to our nation" and charged Morris with "repeated attempts...to reduce the campaign to name calling and race-baiting."

He called Morris's request that he release all back issues of the newsletter "not only impractical, but...equivalent to asking him to provide documents for every lawsuit he has been involved in during his lengthy legal career."

Of his statements about Jordan, Paul said that "such opinions represented our clear philosophical difference. The causes she so strongly advocated were for more government, more and more regulations, and more and more taxes. My cause has been almost exactly the opposite, and I believe her positions to have been fundamentally wrong: I've fought for less and less intrusive government, fewer regulations, and lower taxes."

San Antonio Express-News, 9-30-96:

Paul's spokesman Michael Quinn Sullivan said the candidate does not want to "rehash" old issues. [...]

Paul has said he opposes racism and accused Morris of reducing the campaign to "name-calling and race-baiting." 

Houston Chronicle, 10-11-96:

Paul, who earlier this week said he still wrote the newsletter for subscribers, was unavailable for comment Thursday. But his spokesman, Michael Quinn Sullivan, accused Morris of "gutter-level politics."

Sullivan said it was "silly" to try to make a political issue of something written in an "abstract" sense. [...]

Ron Paul took responsibility for authoring those columns, back in 1996, and he defended their content and even attempted to explain some of the remarks to show how and why he was correct to have written what he did. His current attempts to distance himself from the newsletter columns, and to deny authorship, totally contradict his position and claims from 1996.

BUSTED, Ron. Drop out of this race now, and spare yourself more embarrassment... and spare us the spamming from your crazed fans.  (Want an example of just how crazy they are? Ask Sean Hannity...)