Nice attempt to spin away Ron Paul's bigotry

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Hilarious spin by the Ron Paul blinder-wearing partisans to revelations that their hero is a bigot:

The publication, or publications, comprised a business venture to which Ron Paul lent his name. Headquarters were “60 miles away” from Ron Paul’s personal Texas offices. At the time that the publications were being disseminated, primarily in the 1980s, Ron Paul was involved in numerous activities including Libertarian politics. He eventually ran for U.S. president as a Libertarian.

“This was a big operation,” says one source. “And Ron Paul was a busy man. He was doctor, a politician and free-market commentator. A publication had to go out at a certain time and Ron Paul often was not around to oversee the lay out, printing or mailing. Many times he did not participate in the composition, either.”


So some of the times he participated in the "composition" of the newsletter, which is of far less import than reviewing the words the newsletter carried under his own byline? And what does being "60 miles away" have to do with anything? They had fax machines in the 80s. They had FedEx and UPS and USPS. It was an 8-page newsletter.

It wasn't that big of an operation.

This source and others add that publications utilized guest writers and editors on a regular basis. Often these guest writers and editors would write a “Ron Paul” column, under which the derogatory comments might have been issued.

Says one source, “Ron Paul didn’t know about those comments, or know they were written under his name until much later when they were brought to his attention. There were several issues that went out with comments that he would not ordinarily make. He was angry when he saw them.”


So are we led to believe by a bunch of unnamed sources that Ron Paul is so stupid that he wouldn't demand prior review of content written not just in a newsletter bearing his name, but under his own byline?

And that when he found out about it he was angry, yet never retracted such statements in a subsequent issue of the newsletter that, once again, bore his name? That's what we're supposed to believe? If that's the case, then why the silence?

"His reasons for keeping this a secret are harder to understand: 'They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn't come from me directly, but they campaign aides said that's too confusing. "It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it." ' It is a measure of his stubbornness, determination, and ultimately his contrarian nature that, until this surprising volte-face in our interview, he had never shared this secret. It seems, in retrospect, that it would have been far, far easier to have told the truth at the time."

His reasons are "harder to understand" because they make no sense.

If he has "moral responsibility" for his comments, then why not apologize or retract those statements? Why not express outrage that his good name was misappropriated with scurrilously racist sentiments and demand an honest admission and retraction in his newsletter?

Why? Because he agreed with the sentiments. That's why. And it's precisely writings like those, and his refusal to disavow them, that have made him a favorite of the Stormfront/Neo Nazi crowd.

Of course, Paul's supporters will take this post, along with any other criticism of their demigod, as evidence that he is "feared" or other such nonsense. Hardly. When he cracks single digits in the polls in any state we can start worrying. Until then, he doesn't even reach "Ross Perot-like nut" status. I worry about McCain. I worry about Huckabee. I used to worry about Giuliani. But Paul? Nah. He is what he is -- fringe.

But it's also clear that some of his supporters would benefit from a full airing and education about what Paul stands for and has stood for in his years in the public limelight. If people still want to support him despite his bigotry, then that actually says more about his supporters than about Ron Paul himself.

Post courtesy of DailyKOS

Google Reader Sharing/Social Controvesy

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I couldn't resist posting on this subject this morning. When at home I have a Mac & use NetNewsWire for all my RSS feed needs. When at work, however, I prefer Google Reader. I've been out on vacation though, since December 14th, which is the day that Google updated Reader with new social networking-like features - much to the chagrin of many. The problem is, Google added the "feature" that automatically opts-in you & all of your gmail contacts who use Google Reader to mutually share your shared feeds between one another. This sounds harmless until you really see what this means or think about it. They did this without warning to anyone. Techcrunch posts a good summary of the details of the controversy:

A small privacy debate is igniting over a new sharing feature in Google Reader. A couple weeks ago, Google turned on a new feature in its feed reader that lets you share posts with anyone in your Gmail or Gtalk contact list (assuming you use either of those other Google services as well). The problem is that sharing is an all-or-nothing proposition. You either share posts with all of your contacts (who also use Google Reader) or with nobody. In other words, sharing is the same as making your selections public. There is no way to pick and choose with whom exactly you want to share particular posts or feeds.

Without giving consumers that granular control, the sharing feature is in danger of becoming a spamming feature. Just because I’ve sent you an e-mail in the past does not make us friends, and it certainly does not mean that you want to keep track of every random blog post I decide to share. If that happens and I become too generous in my spreading of ephemera, Google Reader does let you hide the posts that I or any other particular contact is sharing. But it does not let you block or specify who can see what you want to share. How hard would it be to turn that around and let you block certain contacts from being able to see your shared posts or to create different private sharing groups? If we’ve learned anything from Facebook’s Beacon experience, it is to give users of social services as much control as possible over who can see their data.

To be clear, Google Reader is not broadcasting every feed you subscribe to out to your entire contact list. The default is to keep everything private until you deliberately click the “share” button. But once you do that, you lose control over who gets to see what. The appeal of this approach is that it is an effortless way to discover what a subset of people you know are sharing. But it might also create privacy issues for people who do not understand exactly how it works . There is a creepy surveillance aspect to this that might also turn some people off, or keep them from sharing anything at all.

I think Google could put a lot of this to rest if they did a better job of defining what constituted as a friend or gave each person the ability to select which friends are able to see their shared feeds. What if they made a system where someone would send a request to see your feeds & you had to approve/deny their request? I think this would work much better than a blanket all-or-nothing approach that they currently use.

Rodriguez may seek immunity in torture tapes probe.

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Jose Rodriguez, the CIA official who reportedly ordered the destruction of the torture tapes, “has indicated he may seek immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House intelligence committee.” Rodriguez is “determined not to become the fall guy” for the White House, according to intelligence sources.

(Via Think Progress.)

I love when the Bush administration gives us Christmas presents...