Congressman Ron Paul grabbed the lion's share of headlines among GOP presidential candidates last week, and not just because he is
the latest improbable figure to challenge the inevitable nomination of Mitt Romney.
The conservative
Weekly Standard ran a rehash by writer James Kirchik of an article he wrote for the
New Republic in 2008 that collates, to deadly effect, the astoundingly bizarre, racist, and anti-Semitic comments Paul broadcast in a series of newsletters he published for two decades. Paul implausibly claims the newsletters (written in the first person and bearing his name) were produced by others, but it really doesn't matter. The time has come, as Kirchik helpfully reminds us, to recognize Paul for what he is.
He is not -- as some disillusioned moderates and media pundits like to believe -- a refreshing, small-government Republican with a healthy distaste for Wall Street and foreign adventurism. He is a clinically paranoid (and likely bigoted) conspiracy theorist. And you don't even have to cite his newsletters to prove it.