Ron Paul is to be commended for amending auditing standards for the Federal Reserve. However, he still hasn't had an important policy position as compared to hi

Ron Paul is to be commended for amending auditing standards for the Federal Reserve. However, he still hasn't had an important policy position as compared to his competitors for the presidency (excepting Bachmann). This is not a slight, but it should be acknowledged. Now, I agree that he has had substantial power rhetorically. He has people who are passionate about what he says; his elucidations and opinions have influenced them, raised money, started conversations, and affected the political agenda. That is why it is disappointing that the very little power he has has been used inappropriately in certain instances. If he hired awful ghostwriters who spread stupidly racist material because he wasn't minding the store, then that is not a good sign that he has successfully managed the one area where he did have meaningful power. Separately: I think you can critique Obama without mentioning things which seem to me untrue or at least misleading, which I think warrant correction: - Obama has never (I believe) indicated that he's in favor of suspending habeas for U.S. citizens. There's misinformation around that NDAA does this; it does not. If you're thinking of something else, citation please. - The U.S. torture debate has mostly revolved around waterboarding and unauthorized treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, etc. -- none of these are known to have happened under Obama. Some people believe that the Army Field Manual enables other forms of torture; Obama ordered a full review and asked for all torture to be taken out; if you think he missed things, that's a complex judgement call, not a simple issue. - On several other fronts, like the drug war, Wall Street, etc., Obama has in fact applied the policies he stated--I'm not sure what makes you think he's broken promises or compromised his sincere beliefs in any of these areas. He's not a libertarian (except maybe in comparison to H. Clinton). "Batting average" is a helpful term to use, but I think you're not using the right denominator: Paul hasn't been up the plate many times, whereas Obama, Gingrich, Romney, even Santorum have had a lot more opportunities to either accomplish something or screw up. By the way, I'm not arguing generally that you should vote for Obama instead of Paul or whatever. But I am defending this newsletter "scandal" as a still relevant datapoint on Ron Paul. Not definitive, but relevant.