The Campaign To Stop Ron Paul

The right has a new line of attack: some Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans support him! Muslims supporting Republicans? The horror … Look, it seems to me that Paul needs to do better at trying to distance himself from some others on the fringes, and his campaign is still a little not-prime-time in dealing with the usual suspects. But the general line of questioning – "Are you now and have you ever been an anti-Semite?" – is offensive. As Derb points out:

Has anyone else noticed that "Ron Paul" almost rhymes with "Goebbels," if you drop the "s"? And look—it has the same number of syllables!

I see no reason why the campaign should not return any money given by neo-Nazis who are subsequently identified as such. But Jonah is right that this whole thing tells us more about Paul’s amateurism in rapid-response than anything else. It’s also a function of some neocons’ unfortunate tendency to cry anti-Semitism if anyone disagrees with them on foreign policy. Meanwhile, Wonkette offers a bipartisan "anti-Paultard" olive branch to RedState. Heh.