St. Petersburg Times Online has an article posted on Ron Paul right now. It’s a fine example of a hatchet job poorly executed. The author obviously has a bias, and apparently has not so much as an ounce of writing talent. He’s far too obvious with his dislike. I’ll highlight his not so subtle shots aimed at Ron paul.
When the GOP’s nine presidential hopefuls lined up to debate in Detroit last week, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani were funneled to the center of the auditorium.
Next came John McCain, followed on either side by a congressman from California, the former governor of Arkansas and a senator from Kansas.
At the end of the stage, almost out of sight, organizers tucked in Ron Paul, a gaunt, grumpy, 10-term congressman from southeast Texas.
None of it was by accident.
Well you can be sure that the order of candidates on the stage is never an accident. The language the author uses, “gaunt”, “grumpy” - imply things about the nature of Ron Paul. He is a 72 year old man working day and night to win a Presidential election. Using the words gaunt and grumpy make him sound like a cranky old man, which he clearly is not..
Paul, a 72-year-old pro-gun, antiabortion, antiwar, anti-Medicare, libertarian-leaning constitutionalist, should by most objective measures be a presidential afterthought by now.
Ugh. Ron Paul isn’t “pro-gun”, he’s an advocate of the Second Amendment. He’s pro “right to have guns”. I’m not a pro-gun guy. I don’t own any guns. But I’m a firm supporter of the right to keep and bear arms. There is a big difference.
He follows that up with the word “anti” three times in a row. How’s that for emphasizing negatives? Ron Paul is PRO-life, he wants to get us out of Iraq, and he wants to reduce the size of government. Those are all big PRO’s to a lot of people.
National polls place him in the GOP’s bottom tier, with between 1 percent and 2 percent support.
Of course, there are other national polls that show him with far more than 1 or 2 percent support. Which polls are we talking about here? What about all the straw polls that Ron Paul is winning? What about that CNBC poll that showed him with more like 80% support (before they yanked the poll). Being ignored by the mainstream media doesn’t make you a bottom tier candidate.
His base partly consists of — in no particular order — people who want prostitution legalized, taxpayers who oppose paying taxes, a white supremacist running for the Florida state House, and those who think the Sept. 11 attacks were a government conspiracy.
Wow. Hey, why don’t you pick the worst possible examples of groups who support him and make it sound like that’s the ONLY people who support him. If I’m running for President and O.J. Simpson endorses me, it doesn’t mean I like O.J. Simpson. Rather than mentioning the one thousand plus grass roots organizations made up of average Americans, the author chose to make it look like Dr. Paul is a racist, whoremongering, tax evading, 9/11 truther. He’s not any of those things.
But there’s something about the Texas Republican’s long-shot candidacy that has attracted a feverish following. He is one of the most popular candidates on the Internet, and raised a hefty $5-million from July to September.
And he is the only Republican candidate who consistently and openly opposes the war in Iraq.
His patchwork of supporters call it the Ron Paul Revolution. Its leader is a great-grandfather and obstetrician whose stump speech can resemble an economics lecture, not graceful oratory. [source]
The author goes on to describe Ron Paul supporters as “a cultlike following” and a “menagerie of political misfits and castoffs”.
I don’t know how a guy like this gets a job writing for a newspaper. This is the worst kind of biased, agenda-driven journalism, and he is a disgrace to his profession.
Update 10/16/07
The Times has written a follow-up of sorts titled When The Ron Paul Revolution Attacks. It doesn’t do much to lend credibility to their reporting.
In about 100 e-mails so far and 20 or so phone calls, most called the profile a hit piece (it’s a phrase Paul supporters commonly use for stories they don’t like).
I don’t know if these guys have an agenda, or if they’re just obtuse. It’s not about a story Ron Paul supporters don’t like, it’s about a story that is full of half-truths and misleading innuendo.
They particularly did not like the list of some of the people supporting Paul’s campaign.
Did I mention half-truths and misleading innuendo?
Despicable.
