In the light of the uproar over Ron Paul’s old newsletters, a former Paul staffer, Eric Dondero, who worked for him from 1987 to 2003, has posted an open letter at Right Wing News. The whole thing is worth reading, but here are some excerpts:
“He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. … He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs.
“Ron Paul is most assuredly an isolationist. … For example, he strenuously does not believe the United States had any business getting involved in fighting Hitler in WWII.
“Ron Paul was opposed to the War in Afghanistan, and to any military reaction to the attacks of 9/11. He did not want to vote for the resolution. … He engaged in conspiracy theories including perhaps the attacks were coordinatied with the CIA, and that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time. He expressed no sympathies whatsoever for those who died on 9/11, and pretty much forbade us staffers from engaging in any sort of memorial expressions, or openly asserting pro-military statements in support of the Bush administration.
“On the eve of the vote, Ron Paul was still telling us staffers that he was planning to vote ‘No’ on the resolution, and to be prepared for a seriously negative reaction in the District.
“At the very last minute, Ron switched his stance and voted ‘Yay’ [sic]…. He never explained why, but I strongly suspected that he realized it would have been political suicide….”
Basically, Dondero says forget the newsletters, the really scary stuff for which Paul should be condemned and shunned is his foreign policy views.
Even if Ron Paul somehow got the Republican nomination, he couldn’t run on the Republican Party platform. Heck, he couldn’t even run as a Dem. Neither major party wants Israel to cease to exist or wants the
U. S. to fail to respond to terror attacks.
Ron Paul should be allowed to run only as the weird, fringe third-party candidate he is, right up there with Lyndon LaRouche and the other crazies.