(ThyBlackMan.com) Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul accepted “some responsibility” Thursday for the racist newsletters that ran under his name in the 1980s and 90s.
In an appearance on WHO Radio’s Jan Mickelson Radio Show in Des Moines, the Texas congressman Ron Paul downplayed the importance of the newsletters and claimed that he acted as more of a publisher, and said that he did write some of the content.
“The newsletters were written a long time ago,” Ron Paul said. 
“I wrote a certain portion of them, I would write the economics. This would be material that I would turn in and it would become part of the letter, but there were many times when I didn’t edit the whole letter and other things got put in,” the Texas Republican added, yes Ron Paul.
Ron Paul’s comments on the radio show Thursday were the first time he directly addressed the racist comments from the newsletters in detail, thus far in the primary season. In recent weeks, he was dismissive when asked about the newsletters, and walked off the set of a CNN interview after a reporter continued to press him about the content of the newsletters.
Several of his GOP rivals criticized him for not taking ownership of the newsletters, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich questioned whether he was fit to be elected president after Mr. Paul continuously denied ever knowing about the racist content at the time.
“These were sentences that were put in, I think it was a total of eight or 10 sentences and it was bad stuff — it, it wasn’t a reflection of my views at all,” the Texas congressman said Thursday in response to a caller’s question about the newletters.
“I think it was terrible. It was tragic and I had some responsibility because the name went under my letter,” Ron Paul added.
The newsletters carried no byline and were mostly written in first person under titles such as “Ron Paul’s Freedom Report,” and the “Ron Paul Political Report.” One of the newsletters attacked Martin Luther King Jr., characterizing him as a “world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours” and “seduced underage girls and boys.
An NBC News/Marist poll released Friday shows that Ron Paul’s popularity among voters in Iowa has not declined due to the content of the newsletters, he trails former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by two percentage points.
The Texas congressman has a strong online and on the ground following, and they are seemingly unshaken by the content from the newsletters that ran in between congressional terms for Ron Paul.
“If you think about publishers of newspapers every once an a while they get some pretty chunky stuff in their newspapers and they have to say ‘this is not the sentiment and position of that newspaper’ and this is certainly the case … this is probably 10 sentences out for 10,000 pages for all I know,” Ron Paul said Thursday. Ron Paul still continues on the right path to the White House. Ron Paul GOP Leader in 2012.
Via AP
