Is Rand Paul Ready?

I get the feeling Rand Paul just wants to have some fun. I wonder if he's a pot head. He's certainly different from the button-down phonies and square we usually associate with the GOP. This week when most presidential hopefuls were kissing the asses of likely caucus participants in Iowa, he was in the Hamptons partying with FuFu. The Des Moines Register claims he stiffed 1,200 right wing religious freaks so he could party down with Alec Baldwin.

An Iowa evangelical Christian leader stood on stage and told the 1,200 conservatives in the audience and the dozens of reporters that U.S. Sen. Rand Paul had told him he couldn't be at the event Saturday because of a "family commitment."

Then the New York Post's "Page Six" published the news that Paul was in the Hamptons on Saturday with Alec Baldwin. Paul was "among the intellectual elite" at a fundraiser for a library in East Hampton that Baldwin co-sponsored, the column says.

The Washington Post's right-wing columnist, Jennifer Rubin, claims that "a string of bad news stories, embarrassing clips from his unvarnished libertarian past and a defensive and testy candidate and campaign operatives suggest that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is now getting [a] rude awakening" about what it takes to run for president. Is he ready for the big times? One thing is sure-- he's not enough of a warmonger for old fashioned neocons like Rubin. "Take Paul’s recent statements on the Islamic State," she offers. "Recall that he first said and wrote that we didn’t have a dog in the fight in Iraq. Then he said he’d be amenable to aid for Iraq. Now he channels President Obama in saying, on military strikes in Iraq, that 'I have mixed feelings about it. I’m not saying I’m completely opposed to helping with arms or maybe even bombing.' Those aren’t exactly the words of a credible commander in chief, are they?" For people like Rubin, there are only 2 correct answers-- "I will do whatever Dick Cheney or his daughter suggests" or "I will do whatever Benjamin Netanyahu insists I do."

What’s worse, Paul sounds once again like he doesn’t understand what is going on in the Middle East, claiming on a radio program that “ISIS [the Islamic State] is big and powerful because we protected them in Syria for a year. Do you know who also hates ISIS and who is bombing them? Assad, the Syrian government.” Thunk.

He might take a gander at a Wall Street Journal report that explains the Free Syrian Army, a non-jihadist group that the United States backed, is now looking at defeat at the hands of Bashar al-Assad and engulfment by the jihadist Islamic State. Islamic State is the same group in Syria and in Iraq that conservatives warned would fill the vacuum if we bugged out of Iraq entirely and failed to act in Syria. Even Hillary Clinton (sort of) gets this now. We didn’t build up the Islamic State; we let it flourish by doing nothing-- exactly what Obama and Rand Paul urged.

That's the incoherent neocon gibberish Robert Pittenger was trying-- unsuccessfully-- to push out on MSNBC yesterday. Rubin isn't any more persuasive but she's happily poisoning the well for Paul, asserting "his upbringing, reading list and instincts all tell him that foreign policy should be about getting out of fights and lessening our footprint in the world. Confronted with a panoply of threats, he now seems not just wrong but uninformed. The country elected just such a person in 2008. Unless the GOP decides that a novice, pro-retrenchment president is just what we need now, Rand Paul will find it hard sledding-- especially when facing a field of hawkish opponents (Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, Perry, former United Nations ambassador John Bolton, etc.) who know their stuff. He might, however, consider an MSNBC talk show where he can expound on his foreign policy views."

And he's not just getting hit from the right-wing freaks in his own party. Normal people are getting fed up with his schtick too. CNN's Maria Cardona dubbed him a pandering flip-flopper and wonders if he ever really had any convictions at all. Rand, she reminds us "has repeatedly said he is a huge proponent of immigration reform and understands how wrong his party has been on this issue. Frankly, this is one instance on which I have given Paul props for being on the right side of history, the American people and the long-term viability of his party with at least a glimmer of hope and an opening to start a conversation with Latino voters."

That hope fizzled recently when first, Paul decided to go campaign for Rep. Steve King of Iowa, the most anti-immigrant/anti-immigration reform member of Congress. Then, in a grand gesture, a profile in courage, Paul could not have fled faster as Erika Andiola, an undocumented "Dreamer" confronted King at an event, with Paul sitting right next to him… At least King, who stayed and spoke with the young woman, had the courage of his convictions, twisted as they are.

One thing he is sure of, though-- and not changing his mind about-- is that New Jersey's crooked governor, Chris Christie, is unfit to be president. Asked by a Kentucky radio host, Bill Goodman of KET, to come up with one word that describes Christie, he immediately spat out "bridges," a word Christie wants himself less associated with than "tub'o'lard." I'm not sure if Rand designed this popular internet graphic for Shark Week himself… or not. We'll let you know when anti-tyranny libertarian Rand Paul makes a coherent statement on the militaristic assault against Ferguson, Missouri. I'm sure it will be any moment… maybe when he gets back from Guatemala?

UPDATE

OK, Rand has made his long awaited Ferguson statement, and in the form of an OpEd for Time no less!

The shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown is an awful tragedy that continues to send shockwaves through the community of Ferguson, Missouri and across the nation.

If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.

The outrage in Ferguson is understandable-- though there is never an excuse for rioting or looting. There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response.

The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action.

…When you couple this militarization of law enforcement with an erosion of civil liberties and due process that allows the police to become judge and jury-- national security letters, no-knock searches, broad general warrants, pre-conviction forfeiture-- we begin to have a very serious problem on our hands.

Given these developments, it is almost impossible for many Americans not to feel like their government is targeting them. Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.

This is part of the anguish we are seeing in the tragic events outside of St. Louis, Missouri. It is what the citizens of Ferguson feel when there is an unfortunate and heartbreaking shooting like the incident with Michael Brown.

Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention. Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for non-violent mistakes in their youth.