Ron Paul's Friends

James Kirchick:

Daniel Siederaski of the Jewish Telegraph Agency has a story that should rile all those liberals oddly attracted to the presidential candidacy of Ron Paul: not only have neo-Nazis vocally expressed support for his campaign and form a crucial part of his online spam brigades, but one of their leaders has donated money and the Texas Republican hasn't decided yet whether to return it.

Siederaski's got himself a solid story, one that includes the interesting tidbit that Paul was barred from a Republican Jewish Coalition candidate's forum not for his ties to white supremacists but rather "due to his stance against providing further foreign aid to Israel."

The question, though, is why Kirchick feels this is a point that ought to be transformed into some kind of liberal-bashing exercise. It's liberals like Dave Neiwert who've done the pioneering work on this issue. Paul, white supremacists aside, has all kinds of positions liberals wouldn't like. The people attracted to his candidacy are libertarians and conservatives disgruntled with Bush's war. Liberals have nothing to do with it.