Why would that make them drop it? I think the problem with the OP and maybe some of you other folks who think Ron Paul isn't handling this perfectly is that you don't know the back story and maybe are too young to understand the technology of the day or what the liberty movement was like before the internet era. The "truth" is that Ron Paul has for decades been closely aligned with Murray Rothbard, Burt Blumert, and Lew Rockwell. Murray was an intellectual mentor. Burt was a business partner and friend till his dying day. Lew worked for Ron while he was in Congress, has tirelessly promoted him since, and remains a good friend. Before the internet, most Americans didn't even know the liberty movement existed. Obscure newsletters, catalogs, and reading lists were the only way a person might be exposed to the ideas of liberty. Ron would visit college campuses and two or three dorks would show in a tiny room to hear him talk. This was the context from which Murray Rothbard was trying bring individual anarchism/libertarianism in to the political mainstream. It was his belief that the best way to advance our ideas was to piggyback them in through alliances with more popular minority political positions. He first tried an alliance with the New Left, building on the mutual disgust with the Vietnam War. But he eventually gave up because the Left wouldn't let go of the support for coercive big government in anything to do with economic liberty. He then tried an alliance with paleconservatives and militia types, hoping to build on a mutual distrust for the Federal Government interfering in gun rights, economic liberty, and their tendency to shove leftist social views down people's throats. That too eventually failed because of the latter group's continued infatuation with protectionism and using government to shove conservative social views down people's throats. But it was during the attempted strategic alliance with the paleoconservative movement that these newsletters were written. It's not like some rogue racist snuck on the staff of the Ron Paul Newsletter and wrote something off script. None of the people associated with that Newsletter were racist. From a cultural standpoint, none of them even had much in common with paleo militia types. Murray was a classic New York City Jew. Lew is an urbane and deeply devout Roman Catholic. But the audience for the newsletters were protestant militia types from Montana and such and so the newsletters were tailored to appeal to them. That's the background Ron Paul would have to establish if he wanted to "explain" these Newsletters. Do you really think the American public has the attention span or intelligence to deal with that? Do you really think the MSM would ever give him the time to get all that out even if the public did? We're already hampered by having to try to explain complex concepts like Monetary Policy and the Non Aggression Principle. And you want us to waste our time and effort giving an in depth history of the libertarian movement all to explain away what at the end of the day is an utter irrelevancy?
The truth is, Ron Paul probably doesn't know who wrote what particular newsletter since he wasn't involved in writing or editing. That's great for us and allows him to give what is probably the best response we can to this issue: "I didn't write it, I didn't read it, and it doesn't reflect my views but I should have paid closer attention....Now, let's talk about Government Spending." Going in to details beyond that would be a disaster.
