Ron Paul’s chief flaw as a politician is his inability or unwillingness to distance himself from bigots and extremists. During his last ridiculous run for the White House in 2007, Paul received — and refused to return — a $500 contribution from a leading white supremacist. MSNBC reported:

Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said. “Ron is going to take the money and try to spread the message of freedom.”

But that was hardly Paul’s first or worst brush with racist kooks. Back in 1996, the Houston Chronicle unearthed an inflammatory “terrorist update” in a 1992 Ron Paul newsletter:

“If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.”

And:

Paul, writing in his independent political newsletter in 1992, reported about unspecified surveys of blacks.

“Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action,” Paul wrote.

Paul continued that politically sensible blacks are outnumbered “as decent people.” Citing reports that 85 percent of all black men in the District of Columbia are arrested, Paul wrote:

“Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the ‘criminal justice system,’ I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal,” Paul said.

The New Republic’s James Kirchick reviewed editions of Paul’s political newsletter going back to the 1980s. Some of the newsletters were signed by Paul. Many, but not all, were written in the first person, suggesting they were written by Paul. Thus the content of every Ron Paul newsletter cannot necessarily be attributed to Paul. But, Kirchik concluded:

They were published under a banner containing Paul’s name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him–and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays.

So has Ron Paul changed in 2011? Not a chance. A 9-11 truther who calls himself “9-11 Dude” — a soul brave enough to confront an international conspiracy but too timid to reveal his name — has posted an interview purported to have taken place with Paul on May 12 at the “Grapone [sic] Convention Center.” Presumably, he means the Grappone Conference Center, where Paul verifiably was on May. 12.

In the interest of accuracy, I’ll link to 9-11 Dude’s interview. I hesitate to do so and give him any traffic. Here are the interesting portions.

9-11 Dude: “He [9-11 truth nut Steve Pieczenik] laid out that the whole bin Laden thing is a total hoax, it’s a PSYOP. ”

Paul: “This is the danger of what they’ve done. Because, you know it’s very risky to raise any questions because the country is hysterically in support. … Obama has created a problem because he didn’t come clean at the beginning. You know, we don’t know exactly what happened. We don’t know when he died, and then the body disappeared, and that will never be settled.”

9-11 Dude: “Why would you set yourself up to do something like that? It seems so, just, not very common sense or not very smart. I mean, it underestimates how smart we are.”

Paul: “Oh yeah. You wonder — just their PR operation. Why did they get their points in a position where they had to change the story everyday? I mean, if they want to lie to us, just … stick to their lie.”

Then 9-11 Dude presents Paul with the claim that “the entire 9-11 fiasco was a staged, false flag event.” Paul’s reply: “There’s a lot of possibilities there.”

Ron Paul, if not an outright friend of racists and conspiracy theorists, is at the very least a fellow traveler.