RON PAUL IS LONE GOP VOICE ON UNEQUAL JUSTICE

Ron Paul must have known the question was coming.
For weeks, he had been dogged by charges that
newsletters published in his name in the 1980s
and 1990s contained racist content.

So he probably wasn't surprised when ABC News'
George Stephanopoulos asked him during a
televised debate three days before the New
Hampshire primary how that could have happened
without his knowledge. But no one on the stage
with the Texas congressman =AD not the other
contenders for the Republican Party's
presidential nomination who bristle with contempt
for their libertarian colleague or the panel of
journalists wielding the questions =AD was ready for Paul's answer.

Dwelling on something he didn't write but has
assumed responsibility for and apologized, Paul
said, diverts attention away from the "true
racism" in this nation's judicial system that
disproportionately imprisons blacks for their involvement in drug crimes.

Other candidates mum

And when Paul finished what the Associated Press
later called "a positively leftist rant," there
were no follow-up questions, no clamoring from
the other candidates to have their say on the
issue. There was just a moment of uneasy silence
=AD and then a commercial break. When the debate
resumed, there was no return to Paul's charge of
unequal justice, an indifference that is a
haunting metaphor for the nation's failure to
address an issue that is even worse than Paul suggests.

In 2010, 69% of all people arrested in this
country for committing crimes were white. Blacks
were just 28%, according to the FBI. These
percentages have remained steady every year of
the past decade. During this same period, roughly
twice as many whites as blacks were arrested each
year for drug crimes, according to the FBI annual
Crime in the United States report.

Despite this, nearly half of all persons
incarcerated throughout the first decade of this
century were black. More than a liberal rant,
that's the ugly reality of a criminal justice
system that, as Paul correctly noted, prosecutes
and imprisons blacks in disproportionate numbers.

No GOP appeal to blacks

That none of the other Republicans =AD who are
champing at the bit for the right to challenge
President Obama's re-election =AD would align
themselves with Paul on this issue doesn't
surprise me. The GOP's strategy for winning back
the White House is devoid of any serious appeal
to black voters and lacks any real concern about
the lingering vestiges of racism inflicted upon
blacks, who are overwhelmingly Democrats.

Forget all their pious talk about being Americans
first. Paul's unanswered "rant" exposed them all
=ADNewt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Jon
Huntsman and Rick Perry=AD as crass partisans who
won't risk upending the conventional wisdom about
crime and punishment in this country when their
political butts are on the line. They don't want
to derail their campaigns by giving any credence
to an issue that many right-wing voters they are
courting would likely discount.

"If we truly want to be concerned about racism,
you ought to look at a few of those issues and
look at the drug laws, which are being so
unfairly enforced," Paul said as the network cut
to commercials, and all the presidential wannabes
on stage with him undoubtedly heaved a big sigh of relief.