Rand Paul, The GOP Nominee? Over Dick Cheney's Dead Body

Two wings, one grand old party

Bret Stephens is a deputy editor of the radical right editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. Before that he was the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post. No telling when his bigotry made him one of America's most vile smear artists. Is column Monday was well-written, a well-written diatribe against poor Rand Paul, who the Cheney wing of the Republican Party, Stephens' wing, fear could somehow win the next-to-worthless Republican nomination against Hillary. He comes right out, dripping with sarcasm, to warn that nominating Paul will give the Republicans just what they "need", a humbling landslide defeat. That's probably true of any Republican and after the insanity Americans are going to witness with increased GOP power in the legislative branch through 2015 and 2016, the Republican thrashing in 2016 will certainly be on a par with Goldwater's. Remember, this is how Republicans talk to each other:

Republicans, let's get it over with. Fast forward to the finish line. Avoid the long and winding primary road. It can only weaken the nominee. And we know who he-- yes, he-- has to be.

Not Jeb Bush, who plainly is unsuited to be president. He is insufficiently hostile to Mexicans. He holds heretical views on the Common Core, which, as we well know, is the defining issue of our time. And he's a Bush. Another installment of a political dynasty just isn't going to fly with the American people, who want some fresh blood in their politics.

Unless the dynasty is named Clinton. Or Kennedy. Or Nunn. Or Carter. Or, come to think of it, Paul. In that case, dynasties are just fine, thank you.

Chris Christie is also unfit to be president. His aides caused a traffic jam in the service of a petty political vendetta. The New Jersey governor may not have known about it, but it doesn't matter because the mere taint of scandal makes him unfit to be the Republican nominee, much less the president.

…[W]hat we need as the Republican nominee in 2016 is a man of more glaring disqualifications. Someone so nakedly unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of sane Americans that only the GOP could think of nominating him.

This man is Rand Paul, the junior senator from a state with eight electoral votes. The man who, as of this writing, has three years worth of experience in elected office. Barack Obama had more political experience when he ran for president. That's worked out well.

Mr. Paul was in New Hampshire last weekend, speaking to conservative activists at the Freedom Summit, emphasizing the need for Republicans to do a better job of reaching out to Hispanics and African-Americans.

It's a fine message. Or rather, it would be a fine message if it weren't for Mr. Paul's long political association with Jack Hunter, aka the "Southern Avenger," a former radio shock jock who co-wrote Mr. Paul's 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington. On April 14, 2004-- the 139th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's assassination-- Mr. Hunter wrote a column titled "John Wilkes Booth Was Right." He also lamented that "whites are not afforded the same right to celebrate their own cultural identity" as blacks and Hispanics.

Mr. Hunter remained a member of Mr. Paul's staff until last July, when the Washington Free Beacon broke the story. Afterward, Mr. Hunter recanted his views and pleaded amnesia. As for Mr. Paul, he defended his former aide, saying he had merely been "stupid," that he had been "unfairly treated by the media," and that "he got along fine with everybody in the office, treated everyone fairly, regardless of race or religion."

So can we now, um, switch the subject?

Yes, we can. Let's move on to a YouTube video of Mr. Paul in April 2009, offering his insights to a college group on foreign policy. Channeling Dwight Eisenhower, the future senator warned "we need to be so fearful of companies that get so big that they can actually be directing policy."

"When the Iraq war started, Halliburton got a billion-dollar no-bid contract. Some of the stuff has been so shoddy and so sloppy that our soldiers are over there dying in the shower from electrocution."

Then he gets to his real point: Dick Cheney, who opposed driving all the way to Baghdad when he was defense secretary in the first Bush administration, later went to work for Halliburton. "Makes hundreds of millions of dollars, their CEO. Next thing you know, he's back in government and it's a good thing to go into Iraq."

Mr. Paul's conclusion: "9/11 became an excuse for a war they already wanted in Iraq."

Cui bono-- to whose benefit? It's the signature question of every conspiracy theorist with an unhinged mind. Cheney. Halliburton. Big Oil. The military-industrial complex. Neocons. 9/11. Soldiers electrocuted in the shower. It all makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

If Mr. Paul wants to accuse the former vice president of engineering a war in Iraq so he could shovel some profits over to his past employer, he should come out and say so explicitly. Ideally at the next Heritage Action powwow. Let's not mince words. This man wants to be the Republican nominee for president.

And so he should be. Because maybe what the GOP needs is another humbling landslide defeat. When moderation on a subject like immigration is ideologically disqualifying, but bark-at-the-moon lunacy about Halliburton is not, then the party has worse problems than merely its choice of nominee.

This is all so much hot air. This gigantic landslide against the GOP is going to belong to Ted Cruz, not Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, Huckabee or Rand Paul.