Yes, folks, I know that. The accusation I was responding to was that Reason "broke" the story with really bad timing. THIS round, the story was "broken" by TNR's piece. I wasn't suggesting TNR was the first place to report on the newsletters.

And as far as Vedran's concerns about funding go... bring it all out in the open. I could not care less. I have done work for Reason, Cato, and Mercatus, all of which are funded by Koch and others. Not once have I *ever* been told to what to write or how to write it or in any way suggested that I change my views to meet even the vaguest preferences of those who pay the bills.

So if the accusation is that somehow knowing who is funding this undermines the objectivity of the organizations, it's just wrong. Bring it on. Bring it all on.

Finally, I think it's a bit unfair to expect every libertarian to know every detail of a decades-old movement. My surprise at their ignorance of the paleo push in the early 90s was more about realizing how long I've been around and how briefly they have, rather than surprise at them not knowing something they should have. It just never occurred to me that libertarian writers wouldn't be aware of it, but I realized later - why should they? It's not like when I first got involved with the movement I knew everything that went on in the early 70s for example.

No one has addressed timing as I mentioned. I think it's great if anyone wants to write anything about the libertarian movement's history good or bad. But was this the most appropriate time to write that specific article?

It's like pretending that exposing Reverend Wright is just a story about black ministers with extremely unpopular views. This wasn't just a piece about paleos just like the Reverend Wright controversy is not really about a single minister with strange views. No one has said that Obama is directly a racist but what impression do you think writers of these subject matters want you to have of the candidates?

Also if they are unaware of the history of the libertarian movement, maybe they shouldn't be writing for a libertarian magazine in the first place. It's time to hit the books instead.

Do you feel it was appropriate to have this conversation just at the time Ron Paul is running for president and using his newsletters as an example? What it's just an accident that Reason thought hey you know Ron Paul is running for president this is a good time to have a random discussion about his newsletters 20 YEARS AFTER THEY HAD BEEN WRITTEN!!! Reason could have put this article out at any time in 20 YEARS!!!! Why not earlier Bill? If they just wanted to talk about racist paleos, why now?

I find this comment incoherent.

The coverage of the Paul campaign by Reason has not suggested that Paul appeals to racists. It is rather that certain paleoconveratives developed a strategy of appealing to racists and used Paul's newsletters as an element in that strategy.

On the contrary, the Reason writers have pointed out the obvious, that racists are not a significant source of support for Paul at this time. The reason why this is relevant is because Paul's newsletters were part of a strategy aimed at a appealing to racists. This strategy went no where.

Paul himself has rejected the sentiments expressed in those newletters. However, members of the paleofaction have insisted that there was nothing wrong with those sentiments at all.

Paul's book recommends work by various members of the paleo-faction, some of whom, (including Raimando cited here,) claim that there was nothing wrong with the racist statements, disagreeing with Paul.

So, various writers in Reason, have
pointed out that Paul is no racist. Paul has explicitly rejected the racist sentiments expressed in his newsletters and said that someone else wrote them. Various members of the paleo faction defend the racist remarks even now. Paul continues to support the Paleo faction (asking that people use them as a source of information.)

And, people here claim that all of this amounts to Reason claming that Paul is a racist. I think it is red herring.

I often read things from paleos about Reason or Cato that are more or less lies. That they are smearing Paul as a racist is one. That they are pro-war is another. All it does for me is create more disdain for the paleos.

It names a name and implicates others as being guilty of writing those newsletters, without actually proving it.

I may be wrong but to my mind but just bringing up ht subject of the already discussed to death newsletters again warrants the adjective libelous, especially in the context of discussing the book where one has nothing to do with the other. Clearly, the author's intention is to remind people of the charge.

I read it a third time, and honestly didn't see it that way. My impression was that it was not calling him a racist, but rather that it was contrasting his clearly anti-racist views with the pieces in the newsletters.

Also: here's a different link to Reason mag's website in which Paul is treated with great respect: http://reason.com/news/show/126021.html

I mean, this is, after all, a discussion over Ron Paul's book making it to the bestsellers' list. And odd time to say his supposed purity has made him so ineffectual in the mainstream.

(For the record, I do consider myself something of a purist, but not a sectarian.)