Ron Paul : 'I'm not a racist'

Ron Paul : 'I'm not a racist'
07:24

http://www.youtube.com/VLOGZTV
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A series of newsletters in the name of
GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul contain several racist remarks --
including one that says order was restored to Los Angeles after the
1992 riots when blacks went "to pick up their welfare checks."

CNN
recently obtained the newsletters -- written in the 1990s and one from
the late 1980s -- after a report was published about their existence in
The New Republic.

None of the newsletters CNN found says who
wrote them, but each was published under Paul's name between his stints
as a U.S. congressman from Texas.

Paul told CNN's "The Situation Room" Thursday that he didn't write any of the offensive articles and has "no idea" who did.

The controversial newsletters include rants against the Israeli
lobby, gays, AIDS victims and Martin Luther King Jr. -- described as a
"pro-Communist philanderer." One newsletter, from June 1992, right
after the LA riots, says "order was only restored in L.A. when it came
time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks."

Another
says, "The criminals who terrorize our cities -- in riots and on every
non-riot day -- are not exclusively young black males, but they largely
are. As children, they are trained to hate whites, to believe that
white oppression is responsible for all black ills, to 'fight the
power,' to steal and loot as much money from the white enemy as
possible."

In some excerpts, the reader may be led to believe
the words are indeed from Paul, a resident of Lake Jackson, Texas. In
the "Ron Paul Political Report" from October 1992, the writer describes
carjacking as the "hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play
unsuspecting whites like pianos."

The author then offers advice
from others on how to avoid being carjacked, including "an ex-cop I
know," and says, "I frankly don't know what to make of such advice, but
even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I've urged everyone in
my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are
coming."

In his interview with CNN, Paul said that's language he
would never use. "People who know me, nobody is going to believe this,"
he said. "That's just not my language. It's not my life."

He added, "Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Ghandi, they're the heroes [of my life]."

Matt Welch, the editor-in-chief of "Reason" magazine who shares some of
Paul's beliefs on big government, says he has never heard the
congressman make racist comments like those in the newsletters.

"What I think some people are looking for him to do is to say, 'OK, who
wrote that?' I mean, there's 20 years, give or take, worth of
newsletters there," Welch said.

Paul said the editor of
publications "is responsible for daily activities." But he also cited
"transition" and "changes" and said that some people were hired to
write stories "but I didn't know their names."

The
presidential hopeful described the newsletter revelations as a "rehash"
of old material dug up by his opponents because he is gaining ground
with black voters due to his stance against the war in Iraq and the war
on drugs.

''I am the anti-racist because I am
the only candidate -- Republican or Democrat -- who would protect the
minority against these vicious drug laws," he said.

"Libertarians are incapable of being a racist, because racism is a collectivist idea."