The Neocons Lose It Over Rand Paul's Accusations About Bush/Cheney

In many ways I view Rand Paul as a loose cannon.  But on the positive side, he is saying some things that need to be talked about: Bush/Cheney motivation to invade Iraq, failed GOP foreign policy, and the sinister role that Dick Cheney played in formulating some of the darkest years of America's existence.  Whether or not Paul will be the GOP nominee is anyone's guess, but the entertainment factor is watching the usual far right suspects go absolutely batshit crazy over Paul's refusal to completey and blindly support the failed neocon foreign policy positions and some other aspects of the new orthodoxy demanded by the GOP base.    A column in the Wall Street Journal exemplifies the neocon hysteria.  Here are excerpts:

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.

No, what 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. 

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."

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.

Andrew Sullivan goes on to note some of Paul's other statements that drive the neocons berserk.  Here are highlights:

[O]n containing Iran’s potential nuclear capacity? Paul is perfectly sane, and in line with US strategy against far more formidable nuclear adversaries during the Cold War. If he is completely out of the mainstream so was George Kennan and every president from Truman to Reagan. To describe the strategy that won the Cold War as somehow extremist is simply bizarre. Here’s Paul’s basic position:

“I’ve repeatedly voted for sanctions against Iran. And I think all options should be on the table to prevent them from having nuclear weapons,” Paul said on “This Week” Sunday. But he said those who oppose the idea of containment — or living with an Iran with nuclear weapons — ignore that such an outcome has been necessary in the past.

“They said containment will never ever, ever be our policy,” Paul said of those who oppose Iran getting nuclear weapons at any cost. “We woke up one day and Pakistan had nuclear weapons. If that would have been our policy toward Pakistan, we would be at war with Pakistan. We woke up one day and China had nuclear weapons. We woke up one day and Russia had them … The people who say ‘by golly, we will never stand for that,’ they are voting for war,” he added.

Well, they are, aren’t they? And you can tell by the failure to address this core point. Stephens doesn’t address it, preferring to mock Paul’s alleged electability and pick the low-hanging fruit of Halliburton. Lowry doesn’t go there, either. And Rubin of course simply flaps her arms up and down. . . .

What do we make of this? I’d say it’s a sign that the neoconservative wing of the GOP is deeply alarmed by the traction Paul has on foreign policy with a base that remembers Iraq and Afghanistan more vividly than Bret Stephens. And the combination of the ferocious attacks with an inability to rebut its core point – isn’t containment preferable to war? – suggests a bit of a bluff. Paul should avoid the conspiracy theories and focus on the argument. And on that ground, he’s winning.

The shrieks and backstabbing will indeed be great sport to watch as the GOP tries to determine which occupant of the clown car will be the 2016 GOP presidential nominee.