Rand Paul's Office Refuses to Back Up Walter Block

Many of you have emailed with regard to the New Yorker interview of Rand Paul and a claim of a senior person close to the campaign that Rand was misquoted and that he does know that Walter Block's views were distorted by NYT. and that when  Rand discussed Walter with the New Yorker reporter, he did say that he believed Walter was misquoted by NYT.(SEE: BREAKING: Rand Paul Says He Was Misquoted by The New Yorker).

The New Yorker released a statement in response to the charge:

We have an audio recording of the interview; we've reviewed the recording and the interview is quoted accurately and in context, as reported in the piece.

I challenged Walter to give me permission to request a copy of the audio recording from the New Yorker. He agreed. (SEE: It's On: Walter Block Responds to My Challenge).

When I contacted the New Yorker, they said I had no direct proof that Rand or his campaign were objecting. I then emailed Walter:

  Hi Walter,

In a telephone discussion with the head of The New Yorker, I have been advised that they will not go beyond their initial statement regarding your allegation that the Rand Paul campaign charges that The New Yorker has misquoted Rand.  Their position is that I do not have, and they do not have, direct confirmation  of the charges that a highly placed person in the Rand Paul campaign alleges that Rand was misquoted. In the interests of pursuing truth, would you be willing to release the email you received concerning the charges?

Best,

Bob

Walter responded:

 Dear Bob:

I'd like to do so, but, I'm not a liberty to do so, since I made a promise to the contrary. 

Best regards,
Walter

[On a side note, by not willing to release the email, I believe that Walter has a problem here from his anti-IP perspective. He has argued many times that no damage is done by reproducing words of others because the person who originally created the specific formulation of the words still holds them in his mind, thus "there is no scarcity," and, thus, no reason for IP protection. But is Walter contradicting this position by failing to release the email? If the only measure of whether there should be IP protection, or not, is whether the creator still has possession of the idea, then he should release the email. Or does he really believe, as he seems to implicitly acknowledge in his email to me, that a creator of a specific formulation of  a group of words may want it protected for reasons other than this odd anti-IP version of "scarcity."

[So which is Walter? Do you protect the intellectual property or are you going to release the email?]

Getting back to Rand and his smearing of Walter, I also gave Rand an opportunity to respond in the sense of asking his office to just confirm what Walter's mysterious correspondent alleges Rand said to the New Yorker reporter. My thinking was that if Rand had already said this to a New Yorker reporter, as alleged, then he would have no problem confirming it or stating it again.

This is the email I sent to Rand's press office and also to his Senate office:

Request for comment

Greetings,

Prof. Walter Block has charged that a person close to Senator Rand Paul has emailed him and stated that the Senator was inaccurately quoted by The New Yorker in their recent profile on the Senator and that the Senator's  conversation with the reporter "bears little relationship to the mangled one (that appeared) in The New Yorker today. He (Rand) clearly noted (that) The Times butchered what a bunch of people believe, including you ( Block)."

If the Senator views were mangled and he did want to make clear that the Times piece was a butchering, could you please confirm that this is the Senator's view, so that libertarians can continue to know that the Senator stands by such great and important libertarians as Dr. Block.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.


Robert Wenzel
Editor & Publisher
EconomicPolicyJournal.com

Neither Rand Paul's campaign nor his Senate office has responded.

Thus, Rand leaves Walter twisting in the wind, when it is alleged that he already backed Walter up in his conversation with the New Yorker reporter. Sounds peculiar to me, why wouldn't Rand take the opportunity to make clear that he does support the important work of Walter Block, instead of leaving the alleged distorted version of Rand's position out there, if Rand had already said the same to a New Yorker reporter?

-RW