I hate to ruin Ron Paul's John Birch Society-supported festivities at the Republican National Convention, but The Washington Post reports today that The Revolution: A Manifesto, the bestselling book supposedly authored by Dr. Paul, was actually ghost-written by Thomas E. Woods Jr., a co-founder of the neo-Confederate League of the South. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, considering that most books "written" by politicians are actually penned by someone else. In December, the Post received a copy of the book's manuscript along with a letter, signed by Woods, stating,

"When my agent shopped the idea around (before I'd actually written the book) back in October, a number of publishers were interested . . ." Woods also wrote that he was "happy to report that Dr. Paul is very pleased with it. He called me with a number of minor changes that I intend to incorporate into the text over the next few days."

Jesse Benton, Paul's spokesman, is insistent that the book was written by Paul. "They are all Dr. Paul's words," he told the Post. So is Woods: "This is Ron Paul's book in every way." 

It's nice to hear Dr. Paul's supporters defending his authorship of something. Because, of course, Dr. Paul had nothing to do with those newsletters. In fact, he had no idea they even existed! Dr. Paul would never countenance anyone calling Martin Luther King Jr. a homosexual pederast, because, Martin Luther King is Dr. Paul's "hero," as Benton told me back in January. 

--James Kirchick