Now this is what I call a circular firing squad
by digby
Rand Paul:
"ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS. These hawks also wanted to bomb Assad, which would have made ISIS’s job even easier. They’ve created these people. Everything that they’ve talked about in foreign policy, they’ve been wrong about for 20 years, and yet they have somehow the gall to keep saying and pointing fingers otherwise."
I'll give him credit for saying it because it's true. Of course, there are similar hawks in the Democratic Party, the difference being that Rand Paul is pretty much the only one in the GOP who isn't one while while the Democrats boast a large dovish faction.
I honestly don't understand Rand Paul's thinking. He's been hedging on foreign policy for months, backtracking on his isolationism trying to differentiate himself from the Democrats while keeping the bloodthirsty base of the GOP open to him. This comment is one that's guaranteed to create havoc for him with the base. They love war more than they love low taxes and hate gays. I don't know how he gets more than a few dope smoking college kids to vote for him.
On the other hand, he may have recognized that this isn't a serious race for president but that he can use the national stage to advance his libertarian philosophy. Let's hope so. We don't need to hear any more about libertarian economic ideas --- we've had quite enough of that, thank you. (And thanks for the inequality too!) But having him challenge the field on foreign policy is a goo thing. Between Paul on one side and Sanders on the other we might even have a real discussion of these issues.
Meanwhile, I don't know how I missed this one:
"Everything I know about the Iranians I learned in the pool room," Graham said, during a video address to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, referencing his time working in a bar.
"I ran the pool room when I was a kid and I met a lot of liars, and I know the Iranians are liars," he added.
Later on, Graham criticized the Obama administration's negotiations with Iran and got more specific, attacking the Iranian "regime."
“The Iranians cheat and they lie. They are a radical regime," he said. "They want a master religion for the world; the Nazis wanted a master race."
He's getting downright psycho...
And by the way, he won his race in South Carolina going away because they love that about him.
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