Friday, Rand Paul just proved he couldn’t help himself if his political life depended on it (and it does). After telling Kentucky’s unemployed to go to work for McDonalds, and after defending physician’s right to government payments to have a “comfortable living”, Paul just had to speak up for the Texas Congressman who apologized to BP for being held responsible for the Gulf oil spill:
Today, Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul — the tea party darling who has himself faced criticism for defending BP — offered his sympathies to Barton, saying he knows “what it is like to be piled on.” While Paul stopped short of endorsing Barton’s point of view, he suggested that the criticism of Barton was “over the top,” and said that Barton “should be given the chance to explain himself”:
“I don’t know about that,” Paul said, when asked about Barton’s statement during an appearance on WVLK-AM radio on Friday. “I don’t want to pile on him. … I know what that feels like. What I will say is I have never liked the tone of the president when he said things or his administration says things like he is going to put the boot on the throat of BP.” [...]
“I’m not really in a position to know about what they should do to [Barton] personally. I do know what it is like to be piled on,” he said. “I do know that people sometimes can go over the top and I think he should be given the chance to explain himself.“
Paul joins a host of conservative pundits who have come to Barton’s defense, praising his “courage” and “legitimate point[s].” Meanwhile, the right-wing media’s fearless leader, radio host Rush Limbaugh, threw his weight behind Barton yesterday as well. As the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel noted, “Discussing Barton’s comments, Limbaugh repeatedly called the fund a ’shakedown,’ [and] worried that it was a plot by Obama to ‘redistribute that money to ACORN.’” Limbaugh said the “shakedown” showed the Obama “regime” was behaving like “a branch of organized crime”…
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Unfortunately, even Dr. No (aka Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell) ran screaming away from Barton’s defense of BP, yet another time that McConnell has publicly spanked Rand Paul for his postcards from the edge:
“That’s nonsense. I couldn’t disagree with Joe Barton more. BP doesn’t need an apology, they need to apologize to us,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on “FOX News Sunday.”
Speaking of postcards from the edge, Rand Paul let loose with another dose of crazee in the Courier, in his very own letter to the editor. While the piece would be humorous if it was intended as satire, the upshot is that Rand Paul is outraged that his reputation has been sullied by people quoting what he has said in defense of racial discrimination and in defense of discriminating against the disabled. The really, really, REALLY disturbing part is to see this cracker invoke someone like Milan Kundera in any way, shape, form or fashion. On top of his invoking Kurt Vonnegut at a Lexington speech last fall at Bar None, and considering that Rand Paul’s speech compelled Joe to compare him to Steinbeck’s Tom Joad, it is becoming clear that the collateral damage in campaign runamok of Paul’s is being found frequently to the sullied reputations of classic literary works.
We have air heads, helium heads, vacuum heads and Ne-rand-er paul’s hydrogen head — just waiting to either explode or implode — depending on the source of pressure.
Lum