Thomas Lifson, editor at AmericanThinker.com recently published a new piece in a series of smears about Ron Paul’s connections to racist groups. Although it does not claim that the latest evidence is the best evidence yet, it specifically eschews past critics’ concerns over the American Thinker’s previous hysteria by alluding that they have finally obtained…well, the best evidence yet.

Lifson cited an article by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, which cited a post by Bill White, a Commander of the American National Socialist Worker’s Party and a white supremacist. White claimed that Ron Paul had been at some dinners that were originally organized by Pat Buchanan, where several members of white supremacist groups attended. That’s pretty much the long and the short of the alleged facts. Oh…they also met on Wednesdays.

The only provocative part of the post was the tone. White claims that he is exposing Ron Paul’s "extensive involvement in white nationalism". White also states that he is upset that Ron Paul denies any affiliation with white supremacist groups. He says that Ron Paul is a white supremacist of the "Stormfront-type". Finally, White claims that the Ron Paul Campaign is being ridiculous by calling "white racialism" a small ideology.

Given Thomas Lifson’s excitement over the "extensive involvement" issue, one might expect to see more damning facts. Instead, Lifson claimed that Charles Johnson had assembled all the links to the corroborating evidence. I went to Little Green Footballs to find out this supposed dirt on Paul. The first sentence of Johnson’s page reads "Take this one with a grain of salt, please". I will be charitable and assume Lifson missed that statement.

Johnson’s "corroborating evidence" included an expenditure at the Thai restaurant and two links to websites. One of the websites claimed that Paul gave a speech to the Robert Taft club, a club organized by Pat Buchanan and dedicated to oversight of the Republican Party to ensure adherence to libertarian-conservative values. The website called the Robert Taft club an "extremist group" because it is headed by a man with "racist connections", whatever that means.

The other website was the white supremacist forum where Bill White made his claim. The forum was rather interesting. Amazingly, none of the comments from other white supremacists supported White nor did they allude to any similar knowledge of Paul’s "extensive" ties. Almost all of them chastised White for being generally obnoxious. Many claimed that they had seen White in various forums and consider him to be chronically attention-hungry. Perhaps the most inetresting point came from a comment which insisted self-respecting white supremacists don't go to Thai restaurants. I never would have guessed that white supremacy could be so nuanced. (I did not link the forum, because it can be a little shocking in other respects).

This is what it all the corroborating evidence boils down to: 1) White claims that he has been in the same room as Paul at undescribed dinners organized by Pat Buchanan. 2) Those were likely Robert Taft Club meetings. 3) Paul paid for his own dinner. 4) White, an observed attention-mongerer, wants this to be significant without citing anything significant. But here is another wrench in Lifson's gears: Don Black, the leader of Stormfront (the group Ron Paul is supposedly a member of), has recently admitted that while he endorses Paul's campaign, he has never met Paul and he regrets that Paul does not share his white supremacist views.

So which white supremacist is lying? The American Thinker position would have to be that Don Black is lying about the disconnect between himself and Paul and that the two have engaged in a massive conspiracy to defraud the public into believing Paul doesn’t care for Don Black, Bill White, or white supremacy in general. Second, Lifson would have to maintain that, while Black took the all the precautions to maintain Paul's secrecy, he forgot to not endorse Paul. Finally, Lifson would have to hold that Paul has spent the last 20 years in Congress reigning in all of his white supremacist furor, while faking the most libertarian platform in GOP memory, on the off-chance that he may someday become president, whence he can unleash his true socialist white supremacist agenda.

Of course, the more reasonable position is that Bill White is a social pariah in the white supremacy movement who is trying to capitalize on Paul’s fame, that Don Black simply endorsed the 'small government' candidate as white supremacists usually do, and that American Thinker, despite its name, wants Paul to be a racist a little too much.

So here is my take on Charles Johnson and Thomas Lifson: Johnson doesn’t get a complete pass just because he warned readers to take it with a grain of salt. He made an obnoxiously-attenuated connection with no real evidence. I am sure he has been in this game long enough to know that anyone who hates Paul as much as the staff of American Thinker would completely ignore the warning. The "ooohs" and "ahhhs" of his comment section are a testament to the value of hype over substance and Johnson ought to know about that factor.

Thomas Lifson and American Thinker do not get a shred of respect for this. This is the latest episode in American Thinker’s larger campaign to smear Paul with weak and attenuated claims. The fact that he thinks this one will finally silence the critics and the "abusive" Ron Paul supporters (whine), just shows how weak his previous claims were. It is an indictment on the quality of American Thinker as a publication and an indictment on Thomas Lifson’s seething bias. It stems from a broader attitude of dismissal about Ron Paul and his supporters: an attitude which Lifson would surely like to preserve. However, I cannot intelligently predict how the ends could justify Lifson turning himself into a conspiracy theorist.

The Real Reason this is Happening

There is a subtlety at play that readers may not pick up on. There is a major battle over control of the GOP right now. In one corner, there are the old-school libertarian-conservatives. They oppose war, taxes, spending, and any behavioral mandates. In the other corner are the neoconservatives. They espouse similar core principles, but often take to equivocation because they regularly breach them. They have more or less redefined ‘conservative’ to mean anything ‘right wing’ and ironically attempted to mandate their brand of conservatism on the people. Moreover, neoconservatives have coerced original conservatives to vote their way ever since Bush took the White House and they have even resorted to overt threats.

To libertarian-conservatives, Ron Paul is a hero. He stands for uncompromised integrity, unwavering adherence to the core principles of the old GOP, and a refusal to buckle under the threat of new GOP ostracism. More important, Paul’s candidacy has come to symbolize a possible resurgence of Goldwater’s GOP. So much in fact, that he has been endorsed by Goldwater’s progeny.