Pants on Fire

Ron Paul, truthteller, continues to lose credibility. The latest, is a letter of solicitation, published over his signature and citing his personal experience which includes the following lowlights:

It is written in the first person, it appears above his signature, and in making some of the accusations, the appeal references what it purports to be Paul's personal experiences.

The letter suggests, for instance, that new $100 bills distributed by the Treasury and ostensibly aimed at tracking drug money were instead aimed at keeping track of all citizens.

"I held the ugly new bills in my hands," the letter says. "I can tell you -- they made my skin crawl!"

The letter also says that "my training as a physician" -- Paul is an obstetrician -- "helps me see through" what he calls the "federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS."

The letter warns of a "coming race war in our big cities" and says Paul "laid bare" what it calls "the Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica."

A spokesman for Paul told Talking Points Memo that the candidate disavows the letter and did not write it.

I took offense at the "cheap harmonica" crack. That harmonica has cost the US taxpayer hundreds of billions if not trillions.

Of course Paul denies it, now, though he told a different story a couple of decades ago. The facts make pretty clear that Paul either is the author or else is a guy who allows and profits from the use of his name by racists, conspiracy theorists, and crackpots of an extreme sort. Either way, not a guy you should trust within a Texas mile of the Oval Office.

Face it, Andrew Sullivan, your endorsement of Paul is (yet) another example of your frequently spectacular bad judgement in politics.