More Fun with Ron Paul: Ghostwriters in the Sky

Well, my mind on Ron Paul was decided as soon as I looked at his fundamental ideology. People seem to be attracted to him because he speaks his mind, and he wants to restore "liberty" to the constitution. Say what you will about the democratic candidates, but, ultimately, each one of them is at least in favor of traditional liberal values. You know, New Deal, Great Society, Unions, Civil Rights such as Immigrant Rights, Gay Marriage, Women's Rights (including icky abortions), active oversight on industry, all that wonderful crap. Ron Paul is not a liberal. He is a libertarian. If that means something to you, great. If not, well, more power to you. It means enough to me not to vote for him. Though I would welcome Ron Paul one-billion times more as president than I would Rudy Giuliani.

Anyhow, in reference to those quotes, I got them from this openleft post, which pulled them from a realchange.org article entitled "Ron Paul's Skeleton Closet." As the article entails, the quotes were culled from a newsletter, his own newsletter in an article bylined by Ron Paul. The newsletter was not intended for the general public, but for fellow Libertarians; and it was written before he switched to the Republican party. This was 1992. Realchange puts it:

In 2001, as Paul moved to the mainstream and rejoined the Republican party, he disavowed these comments and blamed them on an unnamed ghostwriter. But when Paul ran for Congress in 1996, as a Libertarian, his opponent brought these up to show that Paul had fringe ideas. At that time, Paul told the Houston Chronicle that he opposed racism and his commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." In other words, he didn't deny writing the Ron Paul column in the Ron Paul newsletter, profits of which go to Ron Paul, until many years later. Then he claimed that his campaign aides thought it would be "too confusing" to tell the truth, so he had to lie and accept responsibility.

It's all just too confusing. Just like Bush's military and criminal record, as openleft points out. So if you love Ron Paul, don't worry about it. We must be too stupid to see how he's not racist.

Update:

And for more about the legal definition of byline and ghostwriting, see this. But that's only for those stickler-types.