'Ugly comments' directed against CATO (and libertarians) make me feel that effort has been gradually working to protect the world from dousing down underneath dark sea of misunderstanding, apathy, antipathy and what not.

So let me see if I get Boaz's argument:

Everything the blogs are saying about Cato is wrong, but you can't/won't show why it's wrong because that would be like wrestling with pigs.

Strange.

The way I see it some very serious charges have been made against Cato lately. You have at least as much of a duty to come clean about those charges as Ron Paul does about the newsletters. Pigs or no pigs.

Don't hold your breath, Jeremy. These guys are so arrogant that they believe they don't have to answer to anyone -- except, maybe, The New Republic.

What are the charges Jeremy wishes to see answered? Let's see. Here are a few that have been bandied about, none with any evidence offered.

That Cato was "for the Iraq war." False. One Cato staffer (at the time director of the trade policy center) wrote one article in favor, in a debate in Reason. He has since changed his mind and believes it was a terrible mistake. Every other Cato staffer was against it and any review of Cato's policy output would show that the Cato Institute has provided the most extensive and serious criticisms available of the Bush Administration's foolish and reckless policies, on the war, on foreign adventuring, on habeus corpus, on the USA PATRIOT act, etc., etc. I went to Iraq a number of times after the unjustified invasion to promote libertarian values and met with lawyers, members of parliament, journalists, civic groups, and others. That does not constitute "support for the war." Those who did the same after World War II in Europe should not be charged with being supporters of Roosevelt, but that is the standard applied by the cultists. The U.S. should never have invaded and, after the fact, should have laid plans for and carried out a withdrawal a long time ago. My position is essentially the same (but perhaps a bit more non-interventionist and for a more rapid pullout) than Ron Paul's.

That Cato "endorsed Fred Thompson." False. For one thing, the Cato Institute does not endorse candidates. Ever. A Cato scholar did write an article some time ago saying he was happy that Fred Thompson was raising issues about federalism, which was distorted into the "Cato endorsed Thompson" meme. Numerous other Cato scholars have written very critical remarks about Thompson's policies. Cato "endorsed Rudy Giuliani." False. I can think of many negative things, but no positive things said by Cato scholars about Giuliani's policies come to mind, although no doubt on some things his positions are more in line with mine than on others. (Is that "an endorsement"? Hardly.)

That, according to a number of crazy online claims, staff members of Cato and staff members of Reason all live near metro stations (the Orange line, in particular), so ... um, they must be some sort of conspirators.

That, since the author of the New Republic article is, according to emails I have gotten from enthusiastic Rockwellites, a "cocksucker," and I am a "faggot," I must have been in a relationship with him. Well, some of those obsessed with such matters evidently have very active imaginations, as I had never met him until a Reason magazine happy hour I attended after his article ran.

I have warned people for a long time about Lew Rockwell's vile racism. I had written only generally positive things about Ron Paul's candidacy, as I was pleased that someone was raising foreign policy issues in the debates. (I disagree with his unlibertarian, populistic, and nationalistic immigration policies, his consistent votes against free trade, and his strangely conspiratorial views about threats to American "sovereignty," which I do not take seriously.) But the people who are angry now because someone else found the evidence of Lew Rockwell's racism should ask themselves if they should have thought about such matters earlier and dropped him from their campaign. Someone who pointed out the evil of another is not himself responsible for the existence of that evil. Nor is he responsible for others finding it.

There have been two articles with Cato's byline on them (click above) that have mentioned Ron Paul's truly ugly newsletters, neither of which have mentioned the sources of the newsletters by name (but who seriously doesn't believe that Rockwell was hip deep in the whole sorry mess?). (Or do "Jeremy and Jerry" think that someone at Cato wrote the newsletters and then smuggled them into libraries, to be discovered later by a writer for the New Republic?) There is something called research and a writer can actually find where newsletters are located. It takes a few minutes on the internet to find that various libraries had copies. Then you can go online and buy a ticket to the cities and visit the libraries. No one "planted" the newsletters there. There they were. Is it a surprise that a candidate occasions research? Think about it.

Either defend the newsletters or don't. If you don't, then ask who wrote them. But don't insinuate that the Cato Institute or anyone there is somehow responsible for them existing or becoming public, as neither is the case.

But that's what cults are about. You circle the wagons and spew venom at the rest of the world when your own camp is found responsible for really ugly, vile, and sickening publications. You create elaborate conspiracy stories to explain why things don't go your way, especially when the sources of the problem are in your own camp.

But maybe Jerry and Jeremy don't find the comments ugly, vile, or sickening. If that's the case, then they are collectivists and not part of a movement for freedom.

Jeremy,

What "some very serious charges have been made against Cato lately" that you'd like to see answered?

Frankly, I've seen lots of "charges" of the name calling and conspiracy variety, but none that have been backed up with anything any sane person would consider "evidence" in any logical or legal sense.

But I'm a slow reader and don't read everything everywhere. So, acknowledging that limitation, and giving you the benefit of the doubt, I sincerely ask my question.

The response(s) are more than a little hysterical but I'd like to know these questions:

A. What did the Cato and Reason people know about Jamie Kirchick's story before it went to press, and when did they know it? And how much did they talk to Kirchick about it? Because several blogs have suggested it was known to them in the back channels before hand.

B. Why did Cato and Reason accept the majority of Kirchick's article without any questions, and why so rapidly? Because several inconsistencies have been pointed out on the blogs between Paul's style and the newsletters, and several cases have been shown where Kirchick distorted the content and made it sound worse than it was. Also because Reason and Cato people all joined in the chorus of condemnations only hours after it went online.

I have more questions but those will do for now.

Warning: a little sleuthing here.

There's no time stamp on the New Republic "Angry White Man" article by Kirchik, but it's dated January 8. David Boaz's "Cato@Liberty" blog posting distancing Cato and the libertarian movement is time stamped at 11:51 am on January 11. The second is time stamped 1:23 pm on January 19. The first Palmer internet comment is time stamped 8:35 am on January 9 and refers to emails he has gotten. That hardly seems like a "chorus of condemnations only hours after it went online." Well, it is "hours," but a year is just hours (8,760 hours, to be precise), too.

Palmer's first remark is what you might expect when someone checks emails in the morning after a scandal breaks,
"I’ve gotten some emails, so rather than respond to all of them, I am posting a clarification: I am not quoted in this article from The New Republic. (To the best of my knowledge, I have not met Mr. Kirchik, nor have we spoken.)"

Reason's first piece that I could find is time stamped 3:46 pm on January 8 and is by Reason's political reporter, who was covering Ron Paul's campaign. Is it a big surprise that a reporter who is covering the campaign would learn about the New Republic article, go read it, and then ask the candidate for a response? Ever heard of the internet? Ok, what about the telephone?

Now, what if someone other than The New Republic reporter had "known about it" beforehand? Does that mean that they planted it? That they made stuff up? That they wrote the newsletters? WTF does it mean? Someone must have known at least something about the Mises Institute was being written, as the New Republic writer clearly interviewed "one prominent Washington libertarian," who told him that ""There are too many libertarians in this country ... who, because they are attracted to the great books of Mises, ... find their way to the Mises Institute and then are told that a defense of the Confederacy is part of libertarian thought." Is the person who said that responsible for the article being written? It would have been written with our without that added tidbit about the Mises Institute.

The New Republic broke the story. Give credit where credit is due.

Is that the best you can come up with, Jeremy? It doesn't add up to anything.

Jeremy,

I don't work for Cato, so I can't answer the question you're asking with first or second hand knowledge.

Question A: What did *Ron's* people know about Jamie Kirchick's story before it went to press and when did they know it? And how much did they talk to Kirchick about it?

Would you suggest that because someone in Ron's organization knew about the piece before publication that they must be "in on it"???

I can say that the answer to your first question doesn't matter to me. I know that the last time I saw Ed Crane's SUV, it had a Ron Paul bumper sticker on it. "Suggestions" aren't evidence. Even if some people at Cato knew in advance of the Kirchick, that certainly wouldn't make Cato an accomplice in bringing Ron's newsletters to light.

And, most importantly, as Tom said, the question isn't the motives or sources of Mr. Kirchick, it's the newsletters. Even if someone could "prove" (legally or logically) that someone at Cato "fed" TNR the newsletters, so what? All that would prove is that someone at Cato or Reason doesn't like Ron. Would you be surprised if someone at Cato or Reason doesn't like Ron? I certainly wouldn't. But that wouldn't give me any reason to dislike Cato or Reason as an organization. I simply don't care who at Cato or Reason or anyplace else knew about the TNR piece or when they knew it. Why do you? In what way does that reduce the hatred espoused in the newsletters?

On your second question, my initial reaction to the Kirchick piece was that there are more substantive attacks that could be made against Ron.

I don't believe Ron is racist himself (that's from personal knowledge of Ron). But he obviously has allowed others very close to him to spew hatred using his name. Kirchick himself admits the possibility that someone other than Ron wrote it (see the last paragraph).

As for why Cato and/or Reason people "joined the chorus", I think I need more specifics. What "condemnation" posted within hours of the TNR posting troubles you specifically? We know Cato's first formal response came 3 days after the Kirchick piece. I don't know about Reason. I can imagine reasonable people believing Ron needed to provide some answers for how these things went out under his name. And that reasonable people would want to distance themselves and libertarianism from anything that smacks of the hate-based collectivist racism, homophobia, or antisemitism.

But, again, what does what someone else said about the newsletters have to do what the authorship of the newsletters themselves?

I've answered your questions, though they arrived without any evidence. They don't rise to the level of "charges", let alone "serious charges", never mind "very serious charges". They sound more like "conspiracy theories" to me.

All they do is a) attempt to divert attention away from the newsletters themselves; and b) keep the story alive.

"Math Whiz" - go back and study 1st grade addition because your numbers are off.

At the risk of drawing snide remarks about their respective proximity to metro stations from people who are obviously too dense to figure out that the "orange line mafia" is a title made in jest rather than a literal assertion of geography, the timeline was set out very effectively at that blog.

The New Republic piece came online at 12:01 AM on January 8th. It had ALREADY been previewed at that time by Reason some four and a half hours earlier on January 7th, indicating a tipoff. By midnight on January 8th the chorus of people repeating Kirchick's charges had blossomed into a good dozen or so Reason and/or Cato affiliated sources on the blogosphere. Boaz came two days later, and Palmer a few hours after that - and both articles were written in a smug "I told ya so" tone, acting like they knew this was coming. The haste to pile on Paul in this story is undeniable to the point that Reason was already jumping on it ___BEFORE___ it went public. Things like that don't just happen by chance.

So I'll ask again: What did the various Cato and Reason sources know and when did they know it?

"Jeremy C.," if you mean by "previewed" this piece on Reason's Hit&Run, http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124265.html, it was after a Kirchik televison appearance that day in which he repeated the remarks about Ron Paul's newsletter accusing Martin Luther King of having sex with children. It was the only thing on the story. NO evidence that anyone at Reason had "previewed" the article. They had "viewed" the television appearance by Kirchik. Not the same thing.

I ask again, is that the best you can do?

Richard -

"What did *Ron's* people know about Jamie Kirchick's story before it went to press and when did they know it? And how much did they talk to Kirchick about it?"

Ron Paul's people are running a political campaign, Richard. It would be stupid of them to disclose how and when they talk to reporters. Same goes for any other campaign. That simply lacks political sense.

From the perspective of a libertarian who is sympathetic to the Paul campaign, what matters is their response and if it's effective. But it also matters if other sources outside of the campaign are intentionally feeding this story and its hostile reporter (Kirchick) in a way that harms the campaign. When a story like this breaks there is no guarantee how it will play in the press. All sides try to get the upper hand as it plays out. Since a very similar story about the newsletters hit before in Paul's old congressional campaigns it is very conceivable that he could have weathered it if the campaign responded correctly. That's called politics 101. It matters greatly who says what and how they spin it because that decides whether the thing gets legs or not.

And that's what I'm asking - did Cato and Reason give it legs? Are Cato and Reason feeding this story in a way that harms the campaign, be it intentionally or not? Does the Cato/Reason portrayal of the newsletters make them come across worse then they are or give undeserved sanction to Kirchick's interpretation of them? (Note: One of Reason's own writers says openly that Kirchick intentionally made the them sound worse than they were, though he doesn't seem to care about that..http://juliansanchez.com/notes/archives/2008/01/one_last_word.php)

That's your "so what," and if you think it doesn't matter then you are being completely naive about how political campaigns work and have no business commenting on the way they deal with the media.

Whiz - Reason's own writer contradicts you in his own snide way:

"Yes, gentle reader, it's true. Often reporters in the same city—even reporters who have quite different political views—will be at least passing acquaintances, and give each other heads-ups on stories that are about to appear that might be relevant to the other's work."

http://juliansanchez.com/notes/archives/2008/01/the_professional_courtesy_cons.php

In other words, the Reason guys knew before it happened because Kirchick told them.

Jeremy,

I agree that Ron's campaign's response is important. I, as a voter, get to decide for myself if it's effective. For me, it hasn't been. And that decision is based on two things, and only two things. First, the newsletters themselves (not the article and not anything anyone else has written about them). Second, Ron's response.

I hadn't known about these newsletters having come out in Ron's prior campaigns - campaigns I supported as a resident of Texas. Politics 101 does say that the presidential campaign should have been "prepared". It seems to me they were not. That doesn't speak well of Ron's campaign team.

I don't see Cato having given this story legs. I don't frequent the Reason site. While I did read the Kirchick piece initially (after someone emailed me a link and asked for my comment), as I said, I wasn't impressed by it. Surely there HAD to be something more substantive to talk about...

But the newsletters themselves... They do matter. To me, at least. Do they matter to you?

As for Cato's writings, please re-read the two posts by David Boaz. I don't think he characterizes Kirchick's writing at all - positively or negatively. He says he believes Ron didn't write them. He does raise a question about Ron's management skills, something that does seem to be relevant when selecting a president. But nothing directly about the TNR article at all.

After reading the newsletters themselves, and David's portrayal of them on behalf of Cato, I think David's characterizations are reasonable. You're entitled to disagree.

Richard

PS. I'm a citizen of a free country - and a voter, to boot. I can comment on any aspect of any campaign I choose to. You don't have to read it or give it credence, of course...

So, Jeremy, now you're changing your charge. By writing two blog entries, did David Boaz "give it legs" and by reporting on it, did a libertarian magazine "give it legs"? Get real. It was on CNN because it was on the New Republic.

Libertarians have every right to ask questions and to read what they want. You can tell us we have no business to comment on a campaign that has asked for our money and work and votes. But that shows that you've got a fascist personality. If Ron wants our money and support, we have the perfect right to ask questions about his campaign.

You conspiracy freaks ought to get out more. Really. There's a life "off line". Not everything happens in Second Life. You should get a first one.

A lot can happen in a short time. I think that Richard and Math Whiz have handled the strange charges well. I would add that I did not "feed" anything to anyone. I doubt that others did, but I'm not other people, so I can't say it with the same certainty. In any case, there is no reason to think that anyone did. It was all in published newsletters and a reporter found them....in a library! What will they think of next?

The anger felt by enthusiasts might be better directed at the people who are responsible for that material being in those newsletters. To my knowledge, none of them work at Reason, the Nation, National Review, the New Republic, CNN, Fox News, NBC, CBS, ABC, Heritage, AEI, Brookings, Cato, etc., etc.

Tom, these guys aren't worth your time.

Richard - That's fine, but we aren't talking about you as a voter. We're talking about the various officials at Reason and Cato in their capacity as public spokesmen for the libertarian movement. And while I'm not here to comment on the campaign's official response to the newsletter story (I too have objections with the way they handled it) I can safely say that in the eyes of other voters and other libertarians, the Cato/Reason piling on that has occurred in the wake of this story has been very damaging to a campaign that should have found a natural alliance with this same crowd.

To put it another way, when the story broke the Cato and Reason folks had two options on how they responded (three if you include ignoring it). First, the could have done what they did and joined the chorus with Kirchick (and yes, Boaz's silence about Kirchick's flaws in this case is just as bad as openly affirming his piece as a whole because they both convey the exact same signal). Second, they could have cross examined Kirchick's argument, defended Paul where applicable, and put out a much more carefully nuanced reaction that isn't nearly as damaging to the campaign. Since Kirchick plainly played fast and loose with so many of the facts, Cato/Reason could have easily done so while keeping the moral high ground. Yet whenever they have been pressed to take a closer look at the weaker parts of Kirchick the Cato and Reason folks are reluctant and dismissive. This may allow them to claim consistency and simplicity in their positions, but it isn't intellectually honest.

"It was all in published newsletters and a reporter found them....in a library! What will they think of next?"

Yes Tom. We know that. And he then took those newsletters and subjected them to heavy interpretation that was intended to bring out the worst possible spin on their content. Kirchick's many sins included artificial truncation of the quotes, taking words directly out of context, and padding a few bad quotes from a couple of issues in the early 90's with a whole lot of non-offensive ones from several decades.

Then you and others at Cato and Reason repeated those charges by linking to them, stating your collective outrage, and hesitating not a second to consider that Kirchick was intentionally overplaying his hand on multiple counts.

It's one thing to be upset about the worst offenses in the newsletters. I too found them objectionable. But when you accept the rest of what Kirchick did and publicize it wholesale, you distort the debate in such a way that is unfairly damaging to the Paul campaign (Oh, and silence about the content's specifics as you endorse its conclusion implies the exact same thing as endorsing those specifics as well. Sorry if you don't like it, but that's politics).

"But that shows that you've got a fascist personality"

Gee Whizzer, I don't know what I find more amusing. That your f-bomb laden vocabulary shows the emotional maturity of a 10 year old, or that your post using it was just endorsed by a guy who routinely rails about how his "enemies," both real and perceived, are poisoning the libertarian movement with "vile" and "ugly" language.

This has been fun to read. Jeremy keeps moving the goal posts every time he gets smacked down.

First he says that some blog entries were timed with the publication of the racist newsletter story. But "Whizzer" shows that that dog won't hunt. So he insists that Reason "previewed" the story. That dog won't even get up off the floor. They saw the guy on TV, like a lot of other people. It seems that everyone who watched Tucker Carlson must have been in on the conspiracy. So then it's that they should have not written about them at all. (Like the MSM takes their cues from blogs at Reason and Cato. Right.) Then he says that they must have known about it coming. Maybe. But so what? So what?

Jeremy ditches Richard's question of whether Ron Paul's campaign knew about the story coming. What did they know, indeed? No answer is all that satisfying, but Jeremy says that Richard has "no business commenting on how the campaign dealt with the media." (But Jeremy's business is to comment on how Reason and Cato guys responded. Two standards?) Whizzer says Jeremy has a "Fascist Mentality." (The "F-Bomb?" Come on.) Come to think of it, saying that someone has "no business commenting" does sound pretty f-----t to me.

Jeremy loses over and over. So he say s that other people should have had "a more carefully nuanced reaction" to the article. They sounded pretty "carefully nuanced" to me. But then I read them. I also read the newsletters James Kirchick posted. They were ugly. If they weren't ugly, why did Ron Paul himself run from them and say he didn't write them? (And let's take him at his word.) But Jeremy didn't think that they were ugly. No way. They needed the full context! A more nuanced reaction. So, Jeremy, you disagree with Ron Paul, so you should take this up with him.

What a riot.

Hi, Jeremy. You might consider your use of quotation marks. It seems that you (however many of you there are) are very fond of using quotation marks when the text inside of them in not actually being quoted. Careful! If there are quotation marks, it means that the person is alleged to have said or written what is quoted. And I don't believe that I have ever referred to having "enemies." But you go ahead and keep up the defense of ugly statements that the person whose name was put on them has denounced.

Far from it, Frank. The goalposts are right where they started: What did the various Cato and Reason sources know and when did they know it?

I think I've asked that 3 or 4 times now, and I've yet to get a decent straight-forward answer. There's been a lot of dancing around it. But no straight-forward answer. I see you continue the dance though, repeating Whizzer's claim about the timing...except for that claim was debunked several posts ago by the admission of one of Reason's own writers that he knew about Kirchick's thing before it broke.

So what about the Paul campaign? For starters, that wasn't the question I asked...and yet you accuse me of moving the goalposts. Very strange.

If you want to talk about them though, I gave a perfectly good reason why they should not disclose anything about a conversation with reporters - it's for *political* reasons.

And saying that somebody with a plainly naive understanding of politics has "no business" critiquing the political decisions of a campaign makes one a fascist? Please. Do you also call your plumber a fascist when he tells you to quit haranguing him on how to fix a pipe hookup that you plainly do not understand? I hope to God that you never experience real fascism, because if you truly think anything I said in critique of another poster's plain cognitive shortcomings on the matter of political sense is remotely "fascist" you're in for a terrible wakeup call.

Oh, and in case Tom is reading, the quotation mark actually serves two grammatically correct purposes in the American English language.

quotation mark
n. Either of a pair of punctuation marks used primarily to mark the beginning and end of a passage attributed to another and repeated word for word, but also to indicate meanings or glosses and to indicate the unusual or dubious status of a word.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Perhaps when he is done straining at imaginary gnats he will finally acknowledge the original goalposts I set for him and attempt a kick instead of this constant dallying on the sidelines.

Before the salvos resume, I thought it would be worthwhile for a moment to simply catalog all the personal attacks that have been thrown at me so far by Mr. Palmer and his supporters - also the same people who constantly rail about the "vile" language supposedly used by their "enemies," (quotation intentional, as to convey the unusual or dubious status of this word as applied in its current context, which is to say mockingly) both real and perceived.

Ad hominem, ad nauseum:

1. I have been called a collectivist (Palmer)
2. I have been called a cultist (Palmer)
3. I have been called a fascist (Whizzer and Frank)
4. I have been accused of being more than one person (Palmer)
5. I have been accused of supporting the "ugly statements" in the newsletters, even though I roundly condemned the worst of them (Palmer)
6. I have been called a conspiracy theorist (Palmer, Richard, Whizzer, Frank)

On top of all that (and in apparent spite of the hypocrisy it illustrates) I have been accused of spewing "venom" (Palmer)

I briefly reviewed my own posts in attempt to discover what provoked this wrath but find myself at a loss of explanation. My worst offenses, if they can even be called that, were to suggest a poster's interpretations were politically naive (for which I was called a fascist) and to describe the attacks on me as "hysterical" (which they are, as the list plainly illustrates). And all of that for asking a couple polite but uncomfortable questions...

Jeremy,

You have to admit you keep changing your objections. First, you accused Cato of being part of a conspiracy that took place *before* the Kirchick article was published. No evidence, mind you, just accusations.

When asked "What "condemnation" posted within hours of the TNR posting troubles you specifically?" your reply was ... nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Then you changed your objection to Cato keeping the story alive *after* the Kirchick article was published. Again, no evidence, just accusations. Two official blog entries by David - mostly trying to defend Cato and libertarianism generally - do not constitute keeping the story alive.

You then seemed to shift again to a belief that anyone who doesn't condemn the Kirchick piece to your personal satisfaction is implicitly endorsing every word of it. Sorry. That's just bad reasoning; political, logical, or legal.

For me - and I think for Ron himself - the "movement" is more important than the man or even the presidency (Ron Paul as president would not suddenly turn the Congress libertarian.) While everyone in the Ron Paul "cult" behaves as if he alone has been responsible for promotion of libertarian ideas, I don't. I think it has been a massive effort involving thousands of hard working people who believe just as deeply (perhaps even more) in individual liberty as Ron. Including the people at Cato, Reason, and lots of other similar organizations around the world.

Ron - or the ghostwriter(s) - should have come out and explained how the newsletters were written and why we (libertarians and voters) should trust Ron to keep haters out of his campaign. That didn't happen.

For me, Ron lost my support at that point. That's his doing. Not Cato's. Not Reason's. Not TNR's. Not CNN's. Perhaps he lost Cato's quiet support at that point, too. I haven't seen Ed's SUV since this story broke.

So how long do *you* want to keep this story alive??? Because every time you post an unsubstantiated accusation trying to bring down Cato based on nothing but hot air, you're going to get called on it and the point will be made that the hateful newsletters with Ron's name on them are the issue.

Cato isn't perfect. But they aren't responsible for Ron's newsletters. And it doesn't matter what other red herrings you bring up, or how often you repeat charges, that fact isn't going to change. It simply doesn't matter what Cato knew about the article or when they knew it.

I believe Cato will be around long after Ron's candidacy has run it's course. Long after Ron himself has left Congress. Cato hasn't disrespected Ron. They merely have chosen to not participate in the uncritical idolization of Ron and the defense of the indefensible newsletters with Ron's name on them. Cato has been "intellectually honest". That builds credibility for the long haul. In the long run, that's far more important than backing Ron's candidacy.

Libertarians who defend "their guy", right or wrong, are just like other partisans. They are not being intellectually honest. They are compromising their principles. For what? A candidacy that ... wait...

You don't really believe Ron can be elected president, do you? And you have the nerve to call me politically naive... Get a grip man, get a grip.

Richard

Richard - Sorry, but there are no conspiracy theories here. I simply asked a question: what did Cato know and when did they know it?

That's an open ended question that has yet to receive a straight answer. As I said there's lots of dancing, but no answer.

Now, mind you, I have stated a couple of reasons why I suspect that some in the Cato crowd knew about this thing coming down the pike before it hit, but they aren't the subject of conspiracy. Rather, they are plainly made observations including (1) the haste with which the pile-on began after Kirchick's article, (2) the story teaser on Reason before Kirchick's article hit, and (3) the fact that a Reason and Cato affiliated blogger (Sanchez) admitted on his blog that he knew about Kirchick's story before it hit.

I'll add two more observations to that right now. (4) the smug "I told ya so" tone in the Cato responses to TNR (as in "Well, now you know"), and (5) the fact that the Cato/Reason folks were already publicly distancing themselves from Paul over Rockwell a month before the story hit (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/hayes)

Again, no conspiracy. Just a few observations that, when coupled with the coy and evasive responses I have gotten here to a simple straight-forward question, strongly suggest that the fingers of Cato/Reason go deeper than we're being told and that the motives involved are much more complex than simple moral "outrage" over a few racially insensitive newsletter passages from 20 years ago.

You say: "You then seemed to shift again to a belief that anyone who doesn't condemn the Kirchick piece to your personal satisfaction is implicitly endorsing every word of it." But again, this is a straw man. I simply expect a little intellectual honesty in dealing with his content, and right now it is uniformly lacking in virtually all of the Cato/Reason responses. That doesn't mean critiquing his every word to my personal satisfaction. It simply means acknowledging the well-documented fact that Kirchick played fast and loose with the newsletter material, and contextualizing the story's fallout in that light.

Instead we've gotten nothing but blind links to Kirchick's hit piece followed by smug "See, I told you so" lines and blanket condemnations that either endorse or *give the appearance of endorsing* Kirchick's every word by their silence. Kirchick's article has dozens of serious, substantive factual faults in it, and I've yet to see so much as a word from a Cato or Reason source acknowledging any of them except for a single blog by Sanchez where he briefly conceded the point then dismissed it on a whim as inconsequential. Every single other Cato/Reason source has uncritically presented the Kirchick package as a whole, and in doing so committed a great disservice to their readers. That isn't intellectual honesty, Richard. That's called a disservice to truth and it remains such regardless of what the Paul campaign itself should/should not do about "outing" the author of the newsletters.

You can cloak your stance in principle all you want, but the fact remains that there is a severe deficit of it in the way that Cato/Reason have uncritically accepted, echoed, and publicized Kirchick's article without so much as a single benefit of the doubt afforded to Paul or a single attempt to scrutinize the validity of Kirchick's spin. I'd also suggest that the deranged, insult-laden response to a few simple probing questions I submitted on this blog illustrates and is directly attributable to the less principled and more worldly elements of Cato's position in this whole thing.

As to keeping this story alive, I highly doubt that there is anything I could do to that end, one way or another, in my position of simply posting a few thoughts deep in the comment section a blog post from two days ago. I'm not a spokesman for the libertarian movement, I don't regularly write or appear on television in that capacity, and my comments don't usually frame the way issues play out in libertarian circles. Palmer, Boaz, and the folks at Reason can't say the same thing about themselves.

If Kirchick's article was a smear, then why doesn't Ron Paul claim that on his website? All the candidate does is deny that he either wrote, or agrees with, the comments that Kirchick has identified. If those comments were taken out of context, then why is Paul making so much effort to distance himself from them?

Jeremy,

Your point #1: Three days is a long time in my book. Your point #2: Cato is not Reason is not Cato. Your point #3: Knowledge by one individual "affiliated" with Cato and/or Reason is no reason to believe that Cato and/or Reason knew.

Your points #4 and #5:

Cato - and everyone else who's been conscious of Ron Paul for more than the past year - knew that a lot of Ron's supporters were, well, "haters" of one variety or another. Some antisemites. Some white supremacy types. Some xenophobes. Some homophobes. It's a sad truth that libertarianism, as a political philosophy, gives these kind of people refuge. As long as someone doesn't act on their hate to deny someone else's natural rights, that's good enough for a libertarian government. (A libertarian society has other means at it's disposal to deal with these haters.)

That was my interpretation when I saw these people flock to Ron. Ron couldn't choose his supporters.

I had no idea how closely Ron kept some of these people. Cato, having been a bit more attentive than I, for a longer time, and with a lot more people engaged in the effort, did.

They knew how closely Ron was to some of these haters. And they predicted that someday that would come out. And it would hurt Ron. And, absent Cato's arm's length relationship, it could have hurt Cato.

That's the basis of "Well, now you know". I read it as a statement of sadness, not an "in your face" kind of statement.

Being able to predict the future is not the same thing as being able to control it, as you seem to believe. A whole lot of people "predicted" the NY Giants would win last Sunday. A lot of other people "predicted" the GB Packers would. Other than the participants, none had any control of who actually won. Ron let his name be put on the newsletters. Cato didn't write them. TNR found them. Cato didn't (read David's first post). CNN publicized the story. Not Cato. Ron responded to TNR and CNN.

You ask a seemingly innocent question that can never have a satisfactory answer. As soon as someone says "Cato knew X at time T", we'll start arguing about the accuracy of that in light of some other "coincidences", all the while moving further away from what matters - Ron's newsletters, who wrote them, and what role those people have in Ron's campaign.

I've repeatedly said your question is irrelevant. It is. Get over it. No one is going to answer it beyond David and Tom's statements. You'll have to be as unsatisfied as I am with Ron's non-responsiveness.

Cato doesn't comment about the "quality" of every article printed by every news outlet. They prefer to address themselves to the underlying facts. The underlying facts in this case are... the NEWSLETTERS. Intellectual honesty doesn't require commenting on the article at all. Let alone focusing on the article to the exclusion of the underlying facts - which is what you are doing. The article IS inconsequential. It's the newsletters that matter.

Cato DID give Ron the benefit of the doubt. Re-read David's first piece...

I'm done. I've tried to be respectful. You're deliberately ignoring what's important here.

Jeremy,

One final thought... If Cato wanted to keep the story alive, why hasn't it been mentioned in a Cato Daily Dispatch, or the daily Cato podcast, or any of the other communications means at Cato's disposal?

ALL Cato has done is two posts on their blog. That ain't much given your assumption that they want to keep this story alive...

Jeremy --

You lose.

Dear Jeremy,
I do not want to add "muzhik" to the list of things you have been called, but it is called : ad nauseAm. NV

Jeremy,

I know Julian Sanchez. (I live on the Orange Line, or kind of near it, actually, on the Blue Line, sort of.) You, sir, are no Julian Sanchez.

And one more thing. You write " Cato affiliated blogger (Sanchez)". Sanchez worked for Cato 5 years ago. He writes for Reason and as a free lancer. Get your weird conspiracies straight.

I would suggest that the convoluted accounts offered in succession by Jeremy amount to nothing more than paranoia. I see no reason for any conspiracy. If anyone had known in advance of TNR's publication, what would that have entailed? Not that they put TNR up to it, nor that anyone had ghost written the article. (And certainly not that anyone who has been disappointed by the whole sorry affair had ghost written the offensive articles themselves. David Boaz says he had not seen the articles in question and was shocked at how "vile" they were.)

So, in the last analysis, Jeremy's bitterness is just that: bitterness. He has to find someone to blame for the faults of his savior, which means that he has to blame those who have distanced themselves, as if the distancing were the cause of the problem, rather than the effect.

"What did they know and when did they know it?"

I can't understand the issue at all: every bit of the RP newsletter stuff was online in May 2007, on the left-liberal Daily Kos.

So the minions are unleashed. Where to begin, where to begin...

John - The reason the Paul campaign is sticking to a simple disavowal is just that: it's simplicity. In addition to the newsletters themselves, they have to deal with the political reality of condensing an explanation for public consumption into a soundbyte on the evening news. Yeah, it sucks they have to do this and it sucks they can't be more substantive, but that's like in our 24-7-365 news cycle.

Sandman - Lose what? All I did was ask a couple of questions, and I've yet to get a straight answer on either. If there was some sort of contest going on I seem to have missed it, leading me to believe that it exists only in your mind.

I. Vogel - I'm happy to learn of your attentiveness to typos, but in my experience people who constantly advertise the performance of their spell checkers usually do so in lieu of offering anything of actual substance to the discussion.

Liberty Guy - Why would I care if you knew Julian Sanchez? And perhaps more importantly, what could possibly make you think that I somehow aspire to a career of being a paid blogger for a low circulation magazine in an obscure corner of the web, as your comment seems to imply? Lines like yours work for John Kennedy and they work for Harry Truman. But Julian Sanchez? Please. You credit your sense of humor far too much.

AGN - I've always thought my savior was Jesus Christ, and I don't know what could have given you the idea that Ron Paul recently supplanted in that role, but he certainly hasn't. And bitterness? Please. I'm LMAO at the hysterics you guys are providing. With a few minor exceptions (and I do credit Richard for that), this isn't even a substantive discussion any more. Rather, it's devolved into a mixture of mildly insulting one-liners from people who substantially overestimate their senses of humor and, frankly, a theater of the bizarre where speculation and ad hominem fly wildly, all from the keyboards of people who frequently whine about their "enemies," real and percieved (note: quotes intentional, see above), who are supposedly poisoning the debate over that which is libertarianism.

Richard - Thank you for offering at least a little substance to what is fast becoming a putrid cesspool of hysterics and harpies. In response, my purpose remains and always has been to seek an answer to my question: what did Cato know and when did they know it.

I've stated my reasons why I believe that some at Cato know more than they have let on, and your characterizations to the contrary not withstanding, there's nothing conspiratorial about what I've requested. If anything, I'm seeking a simple disclosure based on the facts that have been laid out. Those facts in themselves do not prove a "conspiracy" nor have I ever suggested that they did. But they do raise new questions about the nature of Cato's role in this story - whatever it may be - and I have simply asked for those questions to be answered.

(A quick word of advice: the combination of non-responses I have encountered in pursuit of that answer, along with the overt and unprovoked hostility of the several participants here after I simply asked the question, tends to give credence to the speculation of others who believe that the Cato crowd is being evasive about something. Maybe you think that they're not, but I'm just saying - based on the behavior so far it sure comes across that way).

And yes, I do know the difference between Cato and Reason. But I also know that they share a lot of the same turf, employ a lot of people who at one time worked for the other, and generally inhabit most of the same D.C. social networks. Again, that's no "conspiracy" on their part but it is the indisputable result of them being located in the same city and sharing a similar ideology.

As to what that means for the Ron Paul newsletter story, I'll state it again: that's why I asked the original question. I don't know the answer to it and frankly the only people who do are being coy, evasive, and belligerent whenever I ask it. So I'll pose it once again: What did Cato know, when, and where? And while I'm at it what did Reason know, when, and where? Get a straight answer for those and perhaps we'll actually get somewhere.

Charles - if that's the case, then what suddenly changed about this story in the last two weeks? If the newsletters were on Kos 7 months ago (or in the Houston Chronicle 12 years ago), then presumably the story was old news. Was it not? And while it was old news, both Cato and Reason were either silent about it or, in the rare examples where they actually discussed them, defensive of Paul...

...until two weeks ago. So why now? Why the sudden chorus of condemnation? What changed about this "old news" story that most were willing to overlook or forget, and what made it necessary for the events of these past couple of weeks?

I've stated my reasons why I believe that some at Cato know more than they have let on, and your characterizations to the contrary not withstanding, there's nothing conspiratorial about what I've requested.

What difference would it have made had Cato known more? Do people owe Ron Paul or Lew Rockwell a duty not to reveal that racist stuff was published under Ron Paul's name by Lew Rockwell back in the 1980s and 90s? Libertarians who were getting that stuff have some duty not to send it to TNR?

Heck, if I had had that information before January, I would've posted it myself and sent it to whomever I could to get the word out.

Lew Rockwell is a cancer on the libertarian movement.

It was all a CONSPIRACY! Only I was untouched, because of my specially constructed hat that blocks the rays of the neocons being beamed AS WE SPEAK from one of the moons of Uranus! The North American Union is behind it! They want us to abandon our DOLLAR for the AMERO! I refuse to use their "money" and instead trade in peanuts and old cheeseburger remains I fish out of the bins. Reason and Cato and the Jewish Quarterly (not even a full DOLLAR, just a QUARTER!) are part of the neocon agenda to derail the ONLY TRUE AMERICAN.

And ..... Hey!!! ...GET AWAY FROM ME!! You Martian Lincoln Lovers are not MY FRiends.....NO!!! GET AWAY!! HELP ME, LEW ROCKWELL!!!

In other words, the Reason guys knew before it happened because Kirchick told them.

SOOOOOO WHAT? Since when does Reason magazine owe anything to Lew Rockwell or Ron Paul? I think you're confusing a magazine with libertarian leanings with a propaganda rag that defends "its candidates" at all costs. The former is Reason, the latter is LewRockwell.com

In other words, the Reason guys knew before it happened because Kirchick told them.

SOOOOOO WHAT? Since when does Reason magazine owe anything to Lew Rockwell or Ron Paul? I think you're confusing a magazine with libertarian leanings with a propaganda rag that defends "its candidates" at all costs. The former is Reason, the latter is LewRockwell.com

Jeremy asks "if that's the case, then what suddenly changed about this story in the last two weeks? If the newsletters were on Kos 7 months ago (or in the Houston Chronicle 12 years ago), then presumably the story was old news. Was it not?"

It should be "'since' that's the case":

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/15/124912/740

I don't follow Kos, presumably few libertarians do. But google "Ron Paul racism" and it comes up, as I learned when a John Edwards supporter tried to tell me RP was a racist, prior to the NR article.

But in the insane world of the conspiracy theorists this is a smoking gun; it presumably proves Cato is behind Daily Kos, and probably behind John Edwards as well.

There once was a doctor named Paul
Whose blimp seemed fated to fall
It said love in reverse
As a sign or a curse
Of old news announcing that's all!

Cato, Plato, mashed potato
Life and liberty is the credo
To stand up for rights
While picking no fights
But on hate to say no way Doh!

The Paul Revolution caught fire
But then became stuck in a mire
"Revelations of hate?
Against blacks! not the state?
In his newletters? This sounds quite dire!"

"You say Stormfront endorses him too?
What's this poor libertoonist to do?
'though I quite like Ron Paul
I'm not happy at all
With this sickening racist doo-doo."

"The newsletters are real, it's quite sad,
Making Paul look increasingly bad,
But who wrote them, I wonder
Who brought Ron Paul asunder?
If not Ron, who's the re-volting cad?"

When this question was asked, hell broke loose.
For it wasn't too hard to deduce
That a crazy galoot
With a sham institute
Was the author, or maybe the Muse

Hell broke loose, as galoot's friends fired back
In a very strange form of attack
"It is all fault of Reason,
And Cato! What treason!
It's an orange cosmo beltway quite black!"

Enlightening debate then ensued
In language both proper and crude
Leading to one conclusion
For those without delusion:
The libertarian "movement" is screwed.

The anarchos hate gubmint tax
Don't try to reach them with facts
They're packing a gun
Chanting freedom is fun
Keep wars private so you can relax.

No disciple of Rothbard and Lew
Still I tell you I hate taxes too.
Packing guns? That is good
Palmer would if he could
I suggest that you should try it too.

Dr. Steele

We're flunking our limerick classes
So slow, we're like winter molasses
Rhymes too much amiss
For that Daily Dish
Where Sullivan reaches the masses.

I like the limericks, including the Critical Limerick.

But I do feel sad for people like Jeremy, who are so full of rage that they feel the need to strike out at anyone other than the people who caused the scandal in the first place. Conspiracies surround him and he feels the need for revenge. He took a course or read a book about "Social Network Theory" and so if Reason is in Washington, and Cato is in Washington, then they must be conspirators. But then, Ron Paul is in Washington, too. So he must have been in on whatever the conspiracy was, too. And the ACLU and the MSM and the GOP and the NRA....so many in Washington! And Social Network Theory shows that if they are all in Social Networks, then they were all Networking Socially, so they must have something going on. Something conspiratorial. Something to undermine Jeremy! They're all against him.

I feel sorry for people like that.

Darn those people who know other people!

Jeremy asked "what changed?"

CNN picked the story up. Because TNR actually found copies of the newsletters.

Friends of Ron and Cato and Reason (objective ones, not idolizers) had to take the actual newsletters themselves seriously. The story in Houston 12 years ago talked about the newsletters - but didn't print them. The stories at dailykos referred to text claimed to be from one of the newsletters, but didn't have the newsletters themselves. It's pretty easy for everyday libertarians to ignore stories from writers that don't have much credibility in libertarian circles.

But show the newsletters themselves, show the content in context, and things change. Thinking people have to give that evidence credibility. So objective libertarians ask their friends at Cato (and Reason and the Ron Paul campaign) about them. Enough do so and Cato feels it necessary to publicly comment about the newsletters it was free to ignore before.

It's about the newsletters themselves, Jeremy. Not what others say about them. Not who knew about the story when. It's about the newsletters. Repeat that over and over until you get it.

It's only among those who aren't objective, who wouldn't know "intellectual honesty" if it was in the form of a mathematical proof, that the issue is anything other than the newsletters.

But among serious thinking people, the newsletters are the issue. And what changed is that everyone and anyone who wants to can easily read the words written under Ron's name for themselves.

"But among serious thinking people, the newsletters are the issue"

You mean the people who respond to their interlocutors with name calling and badly written limericks? Yeah. Some we got some real "serious thinkers" here. Legends in their own minds, I dare say!

No more limericks or cartoons on Libertarian Warcraft! The Grand Inquisitor has spoken. This thread must answer every set of posted interrogatories. Nothing off-topic allowed. Not 'nuff said unless anonymous says 'nuff said.

The anonymous voice of liberty has spoken. No limericks, laughter or lightweight legends in your own mind!

anonymous is serious.

To the tune of 'Folsom Prison Blues':

I see Lew Rockwell a-comin'
And there's Tucker, North and Hoppe
If you ask him 'bout Ron's newsletters
He'll surely blow his top
Lew dresses like he's homeless
Says old Ed Crane
Ya know his old paleo schemes
Are causin' Ron Paul pain

There once was a big flock of trolls
Who derided all others as moles
Paul gave them a voice
And promised them choice
But denied as a crock their old goals

There once was a doctor named Paul
Who answered a big rebel call
He spoke out for peace
And for gubmint release
But how badly he fumbled the ball!

Though Ron's bad with names you know
He's much better than Huck or Benito
His Iraq dissension
Really got him attention
And now he's rolling in dough

The "poetry" is too much. So, let's stop this here, shall we?