In supporting Ron Paul, I am backing one of the few candidates in the GOP field not to have exploited racial code words, homophobia, illegal immigration, or generalizations about Muslims that come easily to the mind of, say, Newt Gingrich or Herman Cain, who actually said he wouldn't appoint a Muslim to his cabinet! I am backing one of the few GOP candidates not to have endorsed torture and to have opposed the Iraq war. To pick Paul out as the core bigot in this crowd, and to regard anyone who backs him as tainted by bigotry ... seems to me to be perverse.
Oh, damn. Sullivan was doing just fine until that last part.
For the phrase, "to regard anyone who backs him as tainted by bigotry," is a straw man, or at least it is to anyone sensible enough to find such an alleged, sophistic taint contemptible.
Hey, I know the feeling. I received I don't recall how many emails throughout 2008 regarding my anti-Hillary "misogyny," when my written opinions were little more than a clean combination of pro-Obamaism and anti-Iraq-warism, contra-Hillary Clinton's 2002 Senate vote. The latter's gender had no more to do with my 2008 political preference than, I'm sure, "bigotry" does with Sullivan's 2012 GOP endorsement.
The only legitimate question here is one of judgment: Does Ron Paul, given his inadequately explained history, now deserve a fair man's endorsement? I think not, and I also think I'm pretty fair (as I believe Sullivan is; he's merely experiencing a momentary lapse of excessive redemption).
To those who have so endorsed, however, I'd add that to play the diversionary self-defense card of contempt-worthy guilt-by-association is itself, well, rather perverse.
IMO, Sullivan "screwed the pooch" with his early endorsement of Ron Paul. I won't say that Ron Paul is a racist because I don't know, but I will say that as someone who was forced to grow up in a segregated 1950s America, my guard is up, so I am a strong advocate for further, intensive investigation into this issue. I've noticed that Paul's defenders want this issue to disappear. I can understand this, but what I refuse to understand is why Ron Paul won't fully reveal his role in the publication of the series of newsletters in which these racist screeds appeared. And, no matter how Sullivan tries to explain it, I'm not buying it. Just the fact that he shows a total lack of concern for what a Ron Paul presidency could possibly mean for those who don't look like himself and Paul leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
Posted by: majii | December 23, 2011 at 04:03 PM