Yesterday Senator Rand Paul filibustered the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA over the Obama administration’s refusal to renounce their self-appointed authority to murder American citizens on American soil.
It was pretty great for bringing attention to the issue, but really, so what if he had one good day?
Rand still stabbed his dad, and the rest of us, in the back by endorsing Mitt Romney. He’s horrible on Guantanamo and on accountability for torturers. He’s also bad on Iran sanctions; on the Israeli occupation of Gaza; the West Bank and East Jerusalem; and foreign aid ”” especially to Israel which he’s already granted a unilateral war guarantee. His NDAA amendment only covered US citizens, not all US persons, and though some swear it, I didn’t hear a thing yesterday about non-citizen US persons’ rights to also not be droned (or shot, etc). And some parts were horrible:
“We’re not talking about the guy coming out of the liquor store with a weapon. Even a drone could kill him if the FBI had drones. So my objection to drones isn’t so much the technology. There may be a use in law – for law enforcement here.”
Just to make sure we’ve got that straight.
Rand pals around with Bill Kristol and other horrible neoconservatives, even receiving ‘briefings’ from Dan Senor who may as well have written the Heritage speech demagogueing about the long war against ‘Radical Islam.’
Two years into his senate term he should’ve/could’ve filibustered 100 things by now, but hasn’t. Yesterday was fine for what it was, but it still only makes him about a tenth of the man/congressman his father is/was.
I suppose it’s possible this is the beginning of some sort of transformation for the better. It could be, but I doubt it. He’s already shown such a willingness to ‘split the difference’ on so many important things, it’s amazing to see how many people are willing to act like nothing he ever did or said before happened or mattered.
Some people love him because of his last name, but that’s faith, not reason, and therefore really no different than kooks loving Barack Obama for sometimes saying pretty things about the constitution and Bill of Rights too.
I didn’t always agree with his father’s votes or positions, but his ‘right on’ to ‘fail’ ratio was a thousand to one. Rand is going to have to start being right a hell of a lot more often to come anywhere near comparable to his father.
Ron was quoted in Time the other day, saying ‘Well, he’s the best Senator there is!’ That may well be true, but as the scene on C-SPAN showed as this played out yesterday ”” with a handful of liberty-hating Republicans pretending to care for a day and the Dem’s silence only broken by Dick Durban’s cry ‘But, Nine-Eleven!’ ”” that isn’t saying very much.
Update: The president has backed down, so I give Rand credit (though I still see no mention of non-citizen US persons). Let’s see if he can do two things right in a row.
Update 2: Uh, oh, yeah, uh, not so much really.
