I wonder if John McCain has been reading this blog. He took to the Senate floor this morning to mock his colleague, the junior Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul, who blabbered for 13 hours yesterday about drone strikes on grandmothers in cafes. See if you see any resemblance to my post Rand Paul is Stupid.
“Calm down, Senator,” McCain said, in an apostrophe to Paul. “The U.S. government cannot randomly target U.S. citizens.”
In his filibuster Wednesday, Paul criticized the White House over its drone policies, and for refusing to rule out military strikes against U.S. citizens on American soil.
McCain, a staunch foreign policy hawk, said Thursday that Paul’s warnings that the U.S. could target “Jane Fonda” or “people in cafes” bring the debate into the “realm of the ridiculous.”
“If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids,” McCain said, adding: “I don’t think what happened yesterday is helpful to the American people.”
“Jane Fonda.” Check. “Ridiculous.” Check.
In any case, that’s quite the dressing down. The Republicans seem to be experiencing an unusual degree of internecine combat recently. Of course, Rand Paul totally deserved this slap down, fool that he is. But it’s possible that Lindsey Graham is an even bigger buffoon.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) echoed these criticisms, adding that he was “disappointed” in the 13 Republican Senators who supported Paul’s filibuster last night. Graham later told reporters that he will vote to confirm Brennan as a result of the filibuster.
Because nothing shows your seriousness more than changing your mind on a confirmation vote because a colleague on your side of the aisle is a dunce.
81 votes for cloture.
63 votes to confirm.
Over the last several years I have gradually come to the conclusion that McCain is borderline crazy and well within the technical definition of an asshole. And yet, at this point he is about the nearest thing the GOP has to a conscience. So is the cup half empty, or half full? At times like this, instead of saying that he is nearly insane, I do not contradict myself in asserting that he is nearly sane. But I guarantee within a short time he will be back at his usual assholery.
And yet, at this point he is about the nearest thing the GOP has to a conscience.
Old white men driven to insanity because a black guy is President? Because Cranky McAsshole is one bitter old white guy. It also makes me start to believe that Boo is trying to be the new Ezra Klein(Or Yglesias).
When you think about it, whatever sanity or conscience McCain might have shown there it was mainly for the benefit of his friends in the CIA anyway. Nevertheless, it was worth it to hear him call Rand Paul and his friends assholes, though.
Good call, BooMan. I liked what you wrote the other day about Ashley Judd, too. You have a great way of looking at things and presenting them to us. Glad you decided to keep writing.
What I love about the confirmation today is that the President got his entire Foreign Policy team confirmed at the cost of exactly zero political capital. That’s how it’s done.
Slightly OT, but relevant I think. So work with me.
I’ll admit that I’m not too quick to get on the Hillary 2016 bandwagon, but after the things that went on yesterday where u had left leaner like Maddow, Van Jones, et al completely fall for Rand Paul’s bullshit yesterday (Cenk actually called Rand more of a constitutional scholar than Obama, WTF??) I’m beginning to come around to the conclusion that Hilary may actually be the only contender who will be able to at the very least keep much of the Obama coalition together (though I expect her to lose some Obama votes, because his hardcore supporters are Obamaphiles, not Clintonites), but she can keep enough of the coalition together and add more that Obama didn’t get by virtue of his skin tone. Because based on yesterday Paul love fest from some quarters of the left, I fully expect that if Paul runs, then I can see him actually doing way better than his father. I heard some people talking today (Republicans I work with) and they were talking in really flattering terms of Paul’s filibuster. They were practically in awe. I’m beginning to think that Rand unlike his father may actually be able to get a large number of Republican voters to go his way. Yes he’s batshit crazy, but unlike his father he makes his crazy much more palatable to the rank and file than his father did.
The best way for the Dems to combat that would be someone who can overpower Rand by virtue of being historical and much more substantive than the good Senator.
I’m beginning to think the same thing would happen with Christie. If the Dem nominee is not someone who can go toe to toe with Christie, then I can totally see Christie by virtue of being able to come off as “reasonable” pulling vote over to him from our side. Heck, I kind of see some leaner already with a man crush on Christie.
Hilary may be the only candidate able to beat either of them.
Now of course Rand Paul is batshit crazy, so who knows maybe he’ll do or say something batshit crazy that people actually notice, but I’d rather not count on that.
Ok, I’m not sure if any of that made any sense, so please just call me crazy and move on…lol.
Joe Biden checks off every point that Hillary does by virtue of being someone:
✓ The loyal VP that Obama chose will by default have the blessing of Obama’s coalition – he wouldn’t lose one vote from Obama’s coalition and would win Appalachia
✓ He would also win the men who only view a White woman as POTUS being marginally better than a Black man as POTUS
✓ One word: “Malarkey”
✓ Been in the game and a man of the people (MBNA notwithstanding) for 30+ years.
✓ Besides, he’s articulate and bright, and clean and a nice-looking guy who makes the AARP set swoon – it’s a storybook ending to a great career, Joey from Scranton who grows up to become the most powerful man on Earth.
There are many others who could make a case for the post-Obama mantle so I don’t think Hillary is uniquely qualified to stake a claim – key word: uniquely. I think she and Joe are the top two, and Kerry may be able to interject in 2-3 years depending on how things go at State, but we’ll see how it all shakes out.
As long as the next POTUS is a (D) I’m good.
One can agree with Paul on many things without being willing to vote for him. I for one agree with “bullshit” like:
There are probably others. I would add:
a. The Earth circles the Sun.
b. Dinosaurs roamed the Earth millions of years ago.
c. Stars are huge balls of gas shining because of nuclear fusion, not lamps set in the Crystal Sphere.
d. The Earth is round.
However, I’m not sure Paul agrees with the second list.
Did you miss the opening of Jeb’s campaign? All of them begin with a ghost written book.
Democrats are going to enjoy the robust drone program that Jeb! would inherit.
So is Jeremy Scahill (from a Tweet):
So Rand Paul has a nice little mini-filibuster and spews out a lot of “libertarian” disinformation and nonsense, basically trying to generate some wingnut fear that Obama is gonna kill ’em at the Denny’s all-u-can-eat buffet or something.
And McFool, whose stock in trade is fear and disinformation on “defense” issues, takes umbrage. Rand P is not “taken seriously”, unlike McRage apparently.
It seems that Paul’s filibuster (as a spectacle) was well received. This is what a filibuster is “supposed” to look like. So then Clueless Harry mumbles something about looking into filibuster reform. Unbelievable.
Just another day in the asylum!
Who knew Paul would be the first key? He may have crudely brought the subject to the table but enough got said that for the first time in what? 6 years? we’ve seen McCain then followed by Graham, feel their policy creds enough threatened that they felt they had to stand up and declare common sense.
The line of Palin stupidities has been long and boring as hell but Paul got to the good old boys and Preibus’ encouraging the other Sen’s to help out ended up mocking the whole Party, but especially McCain and Graham who thought they held the reins.
It seems that Rand Paul has fired back at McCain and Graham.
Like I said when Rand Paul began his filibuster, it’s all good.
All good. Heckuva job, Barack.
I think I have to agree with you, and I’m a big supporter of shooting at al Qaeda.
John Brennan is right: the counter-terror strikes need to be conducted with the same democratic accountability and oversight that other wars, prosecuted by the military, undergo.
In addition, transparency robs the anti-anti-al Qaeda activists of their ignorance dodge. They can no longer say, when they cease to be able to defend their legal and constitutional arguments, “Well, we don’t even know enough about the legal basis to be able to say.” Keeping these documents and doctrines under wraps was a huge gift to forces of whack.
There’s an old saying: be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.
Besides, nobody needs drones when there’s always the once popular small plane pilot error incident that will take care of “problem” areas quite nicely.
I’m thinking of a certain Democratic Senator. Is that your reference?
Yes
McCain understands that Rand was pulling “stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids”. That’s a polite way of saying budding fascists and fascist-fodder. OK, it’s good he brought it up, but it’s also good he got called out or things could have gotten out of hand.
“…it’s good he brought it up” – “it’s good Rand Paul brought it up”.
Do you read this sentence as implying that McCain’s hawkishness lends credibility to his criticism of Paul? Because a war-mongering hawk would be expected to criticize a critic of the drones. Hawks are on the side of Obama on this issue. McCain gains no points with me for defending Obama here.