A template for Drew Wellrock

The Ron Paul Newsletters are once again at the forefront of a Ron Paul campaign. I hate to write about them because they are just so stupid. Dumb, mean things written in a style that is very much unlike Ron Paul. I don't profess to be a confidant to Rep. Paul but I have spent a few hours with him and his brothers at a family reunion and never once detected any sort of racism or mean bone in any of their bodies.

I am almost certain that those newsletters were not written by Ron Paul. He is culpable (to quite an extent) with the fact that he invested in something that had his name on it without much oversight. This post, however, it to the mysterious writer we will call Drew Wellrock, who was responsible for the content in those newsletters. The writing is similar to your style of writing even today on your website. It is time to fall on the sword of your own making if you care anything at all for your friend and former boss, Ron Paul. You have profited mightily thanks to his name and association and it is time to pay him back with the respect that he has and continues to give you now.

This is how I imagine the letter should go:

I have known Representative Ron Paul for decades. I worked for him, have travelled with him, and spent countless hours over the years with him. I can attest with absolute certainty that Ron Paul is not a racist. He is the penultimate gentleman and as wholesome an individual as one could hope to meet and know. He served his patients and constituents with respect and compassion without any consideration of social status, race, or ethnicity.

After Ron Paul retired from Congress and returned to medicine, I approached him with a business venture where I and some associates would write articles regarding conservative topics. The newsletters would go out to his mailing list of supporters and he would earn a little bit of money and keep some contact with those supporters if he ever chose to run for Congress again.

Mostly the letters were typical boiler plate railings against the establishment, people who looked to strip away gun rights, and the political correctness crowd and their insistence on turning a blind eye to all racial conflict. I never included a byline because I felt this would diminish the appeal of the newsletter and effectively hurt my bottom line.

I sent Ron Paul the first few newsletters to review. They were more tame then the ones I authored after a few years. Ron really never expressed much of an interest in the newsletters feeling that he was affording his name to help out my career and business. He trusted me completely with the writing and publishing. And I failed him.

I failed him in writing things that were so out of character with Ron without asking his permission. I saw that the more incendiary the prose, the more newsletters we sold. I was writing almost entirely to push sales and without regard to much of what I was writing. I stopped consulting with Ron outside of sending the small royalties which he generously refused and insisted that I use towards an educational foundation promoting freedom and austrian economics (now the von Mises Institute).

My biggest failure was to not admit my role in the newsletters when Ron ran for Congress again in 1996. Had I admitted my shortcomings then, the issue would not have resurfaced in 2001 and 2008. Fortunately, the issue never gained the prominence it has during this election. I am very proud of my friend Ron. He had many opportunities to tell all the world that the writer was most likely me. He chose friendship and loyalty over convenience which makes him the rarest kind of friend. And my role a colossal failure.

I took advantage of Ron and his name, profited off of it, and launched a career thanks in part to his kindness and loyalty. Of that, I am the most ashamed. I apologize to Ron for what I wrote and my pride that has prevented me from admitting my guilt. I hope that he will forgive me but can rest easier now knowing that he will now be able to spread his message of liberty, and freedom to millions of Americans during this campaign.

Sincerely,

Drew Wellrock

Comments

[Laura]

Great template. Shall we take bets on whether or not "Drew" decides to follow it?

Unless "Drew" comes clean, this will haunt the rest of this campaign--it may haunt it anyway, but they have no chance of getting past it without Drew's confession. The better Ron Paul does, the more the media and his opponents will be talking about this dark spot.

You're absolutely right--Dr. Paul is culpable here. It was published under his name, and for better or worse, unless someone else takes responsibility, it's HIS.

Even if someone else takes responsibility, I'm not sure that he's in the clear. Guilt by association can be mighty powerful in politics. Imagine, Ron Paul gets the nomination, and is on the debate stage with Barack Obama, and the barrage starts: "Mr. Paul's friends apparently believe that people who look like me are uneducated thugs..."

[Triple Hash]

Hey, Drew Wellrock sounds faintly similar to someone. ; )

This is another example of defending the indefensible. The sorry thing about these newsletters is that what was written was thought by many people, most of these people dwell on the right in their politics. Sad, but true.

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[Eric Parks]

Ron Paul is a messenger of ideas. Lew Rockwell is the ideological driver of the message. If Rockwell did write the letters, his admission would be harder on the current movement than a politician riding its wave.