Ron Paul didn't write "The Revolution: A Manifesto"
Former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has boasted that he wrote a book slamming the Iraq war and challenging the nation's economic system to continue a grass-roots movement that grew out of his quixotic campaign. The best-selling "The Revolution: A Manifesto" has become the centerpiece of a counterconvention by Paul that he has predicted will attract thousands of supporters to the T
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But although the congressman from Texas has repeatedly called the book his own work, it was largely written by an unacknowledged ghostwriter, and it is unclear how much Paul contributed to the final product.
Late last year, Tom Woods, a longtime Paul supporter and libertarian scholar who will be speaking at the counterconvention, sent out copies of the manuscript and indicated that he had written the manifesto on Paul's behalf, according to copies of a letter from Woods and an original manuscript obtained by The Washington Post.
"Enclosed is the manuscript for a book tentatively titled The Revolution: A Manifesto, to be published under Dr. Paul's name," Woods's Dec. 26 letter says. The name of the letter's recipient was redacted. "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."
Woods confirmed in an interview that the letter is authentic, but said it overemphasizes his role in writing the book. "This is Ron Paul's book in every way," Woods said. When asked if Paul used a ghostwriter, Jesse Benton, his spokesman, said "They are all Dr. Paul's words."
Despite his role, Woods, an author of numerous books under his own name, wrote glowing reviews of Paul's book on libertarian Web sites when it was released by Grand Central Publishing in January. On one, he wrote: "Whatever your expectations for Ron Paul's book . . . I can say with confidence that they have been exceeded. By a mile."
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
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Added: Sep 3 2008 In: news_politics
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