Paul personally authorised his newsletters

The Washington Post has the scoop, and reports that Paul was closely associated with the production of the controversial newsletters. The pamphlets are disturbing, to say the least, but Dave Weigel seems to put it best in this case, dismissively:

Paul's odd coalition of Old Right conservatives and young liberal college students hasn't been shaken at all by the newsletter story. In primary after primary, he outperforms with liberals. This convinces me that Paul's close third place result in Iowa was a godsend: It made sure that Newsletteraquiddick remained a boutique story, not an explosive new story about a frontrunner. And it suggests that Paul's voters are so dedicated to their protest votes that they're willing to overlook... well, everything that makes him look bad. Most of them know they're not picking a president. They're keeping an anti-drug war, anti-tax spokesman on the debate stage next to Mitt Romney.

It's true that very few perceive Ron Paul to be a particularly presidential candidate. Indeed, it would seem to me that Paul's appeal is that he gives weight to social issues of perceived-importance. Ta-Nehisi Coates puts this in perspective:

As I've said before, we all must make our calculus in supporting a candidate or even claiming he is "good" for the debate. But it must be an honest calculus. If you believe that a character who would conspire to profit off of white supremacy, anti-gay bigotry, and anti-Semitism is the best vehicle for convincing the country to end the drug war, to end our romance with interventionism, to encourage serious scrutiny of state violence, at every level, then you should be honest enough to defend that proposition. What you should not do is claim that Ron Paul "legislated" for Martin Luther King Day, or claim to have intricate knowledge of Ron Paul's heart, and thus by the harsh accumulation of evidence, be made to look ridiculous.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

(Image: source here.)