Ron Paul’s recently published book, The Revolution, is number one on Amazon and will debut on the New York Times bestseller list at number seven—good news, eh? Not to the fake “libertarians” over at Reason magazine, no sirreee!

David Weigel posts this snarky little rant, digging up the Ron Paul newsletter scandal—which I debunked here—but Weigel doesn’t have to answer any arguments, or even make any of his own. All he has to do is borrow a smear from another neocon-run sliming operation, and, Voila!:

“Back in January there was a split, among friends of Ron Paul, about how to respond to criticisms of weird and bigoted passages in old issues of his (now defunct) newsletter. Some in his circle, like his congressional Chief of Staff Tom Lizardo, wanted Paul to cut bait and name the paleos (including Lew Rockwell) who’d ghostwritten the most offensive and non-Paul sounding sections of the letters.(Yes, I’m aware of the argument that there was nothing controversial in the newsletters unless you’re a namby-pamby cosmotarian. If the people making that argument are interested, I hear Jeremiah Wright is hiring in his PR shop.) Paul never did, and the controversy faded.”

There was no “split among friends of Ron Paul”—his enemies, including those at the helm of Reason magazine, pounced on the newsletters. His friends saw nothing “weird” or “bigoted” about articles denouncing affirmative action, the welfare state, and the Rodney King rioters of the 1980s. Lew Rockwell, by the way, is not the author of those newsletters—trust me—and Weigel has never come up with any convincing evidence that he is: that doesn’t stop him, however, from using this as another opportunity to go after Lew. Whatever. It’s interesting, however, that Weigel invokes the Wright “controversy”—yet another instance in which the only (relatively) antiwar candidate left standing is being slimed by the War Party.

Speaking of needing a PR shop: Reason is fast losing subscribers and readers over this. Take a look at the comments attached to Weigel’s post: they sure have Weigel’s number. Almost to a man (and woman) they are wondering: whose side is Reason on? Why are they bringing up this tired old “controversy”? Who benefits—the friends or the enemies of liberty? So intent are these would-be commissars on purging the movement of anyone who doesn’t kowtow to their PC gods that they lose sight of the fact that Ron Paul is a bestselling author who has done more for the cause of liberty than Reason could ever hope to.

Weigel claims to be “flabbergasted” by Paul’s endorsement of Lew Rockwell, lewrockwell.com, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, but to anyone familiar with Lew and his good works, none of this is surprising. Lew is more of a libertarian in his little finger than the entire staff of Reason magazine, and Paul clearly recognizes this—as do most libertarians. The “cosmopolitan” faux-libertarians who have made the smearing of the most decent politician in the country their obsession are despised by the rank-and-file of the libertarian movement, and rightly so: what makes Reason‘s fixation even more pathetic is that they keep trying to claim that they really like Ron—they really really do!—it’s just those evil right-wing “populists” and “conspiracy theorists” they hate. Of course, everyone knew about these newsletters, including the folks at Reason: it wasn’t until The New Republic had a snit fit that they went into their “anti-racist” act. (Believe you me, bud, it is an act).

Of course, the Reasonoids could care less about the libertarian movement: they would much prefer that they be allowed to post articles on why methamphetamine should be legalized, and what Ayn Rand ate for breakfast, in their little subsidized literary sandbox, without having to bother with anyone who lives outside the Washington Beltway. A presidential campaign? Why bother—as long as we get our paychecks, courtesy of the Koch empire?!

Yeah, well screw you, Weigel, and screw Reason magazine—Ron Paul is the future of the libertarian movement, and you are yesterday’s flotsam.