(Smearbund - I just can’t get enough of that word lately. That’s why I read Lew’s blog.)

A writer from Lew Rockwell’s stable finally (!) breaks ranks. Gene Callahan has had enough:

The final straw: “Last week, a statement was prepared by Ron Paul’s press secretary Jesse Benton, and approved by Ron Paul, acknowledging Lew Rockwell as having a role in the newsletters. The statement was squashed by campaign chairman Kent Snyder.”

Man, Paul’s behavior regarding these newsletters has been awful. His “I don’t know who wrote these” is about as slippery as a politician can get. Everyone who was around libertarianism in the early 90s knows Lew was in charge of these and knows Rothbard and his crew were into race-baiting back then. (By the way, notice that the longer Lew has been away from Rothbard’s influence, the more decent he’s become? I personally have found him very affable, and I can’t imagine him putting out material like this today. Just shows what hanging around Rothbard can do to you.)

Paul’s got a decent message, but he’s the wrong vehicle for delivering it.

In comments there, co-blogger Bob Murphy farvors a more traditional (*) approach, one that he likens to a blue wall of silence:

I think you are overreacting in the opposite way here, Gene. I.e. yes, I totally agree that (a) certain things in those newsletters were inexcusable, (b) RP is clearly lying about it now when he says he has no idea who wrote it, and (c) it is silly to just dismiss the inquiries as smears.

Having said all that, I do kinda wonder why Sanchez and his co-author decided to write that particular article, when the damage had already been done by the TNR one. If next week some anti-Irish magazine came out with a story that you did a bunch of drugs when you were younger (outlandish, I know), and this was getting you in trouble with your PhD committee, I wouldn’t comment to any reporter who called me up about it. And I sure as heck wouldn’t spend a few days doing research on it because “Callahan won’t come clean on this!”

Does that sound so crazy? If I were to do that, don’t you think some of your buddies would think, “Jeez, I thought Bob was Gene’s friend!” ?

I realize this sounds like cops and their blue wall of silence whenever one of them beats up a suspect, and maybe my view is just that wrong / tribal / petty. But I understand why longtime fans of LRC are lashing out at Reason on this, and don’t view Sanchez as Bob Woodward.

(* Traditional among Rockwell’s writers, that is.)

One thing that has been virtually absent from the whole Ron Paul Newsletter shitstorm is the simple fact that racism per se is not incompatible with libertarianism. That fact, brought to light when the newsletters were publicized, would have short-circuited weeks of yelling by both sides. So why hasn’t anyone prominent in the debate taken notice of it? The answer is that the public outrage to such a defense would be enormous.

Neither side in the newsletter flap cares to discuss this, because doing so would be very unpopular. Both sides would rather avoid unpopular truth - it’s of no use to them.

The Ron Paul flap basically boils down to two camps of liars, each of whom claims that the other is, well, …lying.

I’m slightly underwhelmed.

I saw Ron Paul on CNN’s Situation Room today, he was filibustering to burn up any time during which he might have to face more questions about his newsletters. One thing he said was that he would pardon anyone convicted of a non-violent drug crime. That’s pretty sweet.

But in the Fox debate tonight when the subject of illegal immigration came up he said, “The law is the law and it ought to be enforced.”

Um.

If the law is the law for wetbacks why shouldn’t the law be the law for tweakers?

Doesn’t it?