Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Silence of the Pauls

So why aren't Ron Paul's newsletters and Paul's extremely unconvincing justification of their content getting more press? Sure, Paul's not going to be the Republican nominee, but he was within one percentage point of Mayor 911 in N.H. and got twice the percentage that Richardson got on the Democratic side. Maybe I missed the coverage. I don't read all the papers or watch many news programs. But I've seen more stories on the Golf Channel commentator who apologized for using the word "lynch," entirely without malice -- or any other form of thought -- in a metaphor about Tiger Woods and his rivals. And nobody watches the Golf Channel.

There's nothing in this article about Paul in today's NYT. This article about the mainstream press reporting on Paul's newsletter only refers to The New Republic article itself and a post on Andy Sully's blog. A search for "Ron Paul newsletter" on Google News turns up 20 stories, all or almost all of which appear to be from blogs or web-only publications. As far as I can tell, the author of the TNR piece only appeared on Tucker. And nobody watches Tucker.

Isn't this the sort of story the flaming liberal press supposedly loves -- exposing a Republican for his bigotry? Why, it's almost enough to make me believe the liberal media doesn't exist. Or maybe it's because Paul opposed the invasion of Iraq. [/sacrasm]

The most innocent explanation for Paul's actions -- that he put his name on a newsletter without ever monitoring its content -- means that Paul is a complete moron who was friendly with, and trusted, some extremely loathsome bigots. In other words, well within the mainstream of G.O.P. leadership.

p.s. -- More comedy gold from Paulogists here.

For Further Discussion: Compare to the media attention regarding Joe Biden's comment that Senator Obama was "articulate and bright and clean." And to other web-originated stories that have received traditional press coverage this week.

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