In comments over at Pajamas Media, Paul’s defenders insist that Kirchick took the words out of context. It’d actually be pretty amusing if someone could string all the statements together in a way that renders them completely innocent. Let’s start with some explanatory context for “Bring Back the Closet!” and “AIDS can be transmitted by saliva.” Also: “[O]ur country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists—and they can be identified by the color of their skin.”
Kerry Howley
It’s possible that the “AIDS can be transmitted by saliva.” quote could be defended by the context of the date.
The others are on their own, though.
Pajamas strikes the right tone in that post, but it’s probably more due to its following the editorial line of its co-founder Charles Johnson, who loathes Paul because he is a libertarian isolationist rather than a “neocon” berserker. This enables Johnson and people like him to smear Paul as a 9/11 Truther and a Nazi. This is not to say that Paul is innocent of racism, but Pajamas’ dudgeon is undercut by the fact that it recently hired a pseudo-journalist, Alyssa A. Lappen, who once published in FrontPage Magazine the blood libel that Palestinians in Ramallah cannibalized — yes, ate — two IDF reservists.