December 23, 2008
Over at The American Conservative, Dan McCarthy defends Dave Weigel and Reason magazine’s unyielding coverage of Ron Paul’s supposedly scandalous ties to “racism” and other thought crimes. According to McCarthy, “David Weigel is a reporter first and a libertarian second: if he?s assigned to write about a story, he?s going to dig up whatever he can and report on what?s most controversial.”
The problem is that Weigel and co. are not merely objective reporters or even muckrakers. They are advocacy journalists who wrote on the Ron Paul Political Report as a pretext to demand that Paul and the movement he represents purge and denounce all “racists,” “homophobes,” and anyone else who does not sufficiently embrace “free minds and free markets.”
Weigel and Julian Sanchez concluded their magnum opus on The Ron Paul Newsletters,
Ron Paul may not be a racist, but he became complicit in a strategy of pandering to racists?and taking “moral responsibility” for that now means more than just uttering the phrase. It means openly grappling with his own past?acknowledging who said what, and why. Otherwise he risks damaging not only his own reputation, but that of the philosophy to which he has committed his life.
Later Weigel complained that Paul’s book contained nods to Lew Rockwell, Paul Craig Roberts, and Tom DiLorenzo.
I don’t expect Weigel or any journalist to simply mouth off Ron Paul talking points (I certainly haven’t,) but if their specific goal is to blacklist anyone who doesn’t tow the open borders/multi-culti line, we should not hesitate to speak out.
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