Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Rand Paul develops a severe case of Romnesia

I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on the internet. But it seems clear to me that Senator Rand Paul is suffering from the very same affliction that plagued Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign...Romnesia.

Case in point: You might remember than during Senator Paul's filibuster about the use of drones on American soil, he said that “When I asked the president, can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer… It should have been a resounding and unequivocal ‘no.'"

And then yesterday, he said this:
“…I’ve never argued against any technology being used when you an imminent threat, an active crime going on. If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and 50 dollars in cash, I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him, but it’s different if they want to come fly over your hot tub, or your yard just because they want to do surveillance on everyone, and they want to watch your activities.”
Just a bit of an equivocation there, I'd suggest.

But then when his #StandWithRand supporters got pissed at him for that, here's how he explained it last night.
My comments [on Tuesday] left the mistaken impression that my position on drones had changed. Let me be clear: it has not. Armed drones should not be used in normal crime situations. They only may only be considered in extraordinary, lethal situations where there is an ongoing, imminent threat. I described that scenario previously during my Senate filibuster.
Now...unless you think that someone coming "out of a liquor store with a weapon and 50 dollars in cash" should be considered an "extraordinary, lethal situation where there is an ongoing, imminent threat" (already one gigantic equivocation), then I'd suggest we're looking at a rather severe case of Romnesia.

But really, the only reason this particular iteration of that malady stands out is because Sen. Paul drew so much support from the emo/libertarian crowd for his filibuster. As we saw with candidate Romney, Republicans do this kind of thing all the time. Its why some folks like me are suggesting that they are in a post-truth/post-policy mode these days. They've made the calculation that they can say something one day and completely contradict themselves the next. The only thing that is consistent about anything they propose is that it has to be in direct opposition to whatever President Obama is doing/saying. That's what Romnesia does to you.

Here you go Senator Paul - I believe a little brain laxative might be just what the doctor ordered ;-)

10 comments:

  1. So... everyone that leaves a liquor store with at least $50 in their pocket and a gun is fair game... not for arrest and trial, but immediate execution?

    Without even waiting to see if the liquor store was robbed?

    And he doesn't see that a drone available to murder citizens that leave certain establishments with their own money and firearms is also a drone that is flying over hot tubs?

    Good gravy. The stoopid!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The really ridiculous part is that dropping a drone on the guy with a gun and $50 would likely destroy the liquor store he's coming out of and kill anyone else in the establishment as well. The stoopid is truly phenomenal.

      Delete
    2. Gotta bomb the 7-11 in order to save the 7-11.

      Delete
  2. We've been seeing them do the "switch from day-to-day" routine for a long time now. Sometimes it takes a week or two instead of a day, but it's been their mode of operation for years. They go from screaming about deficits to "deficits don't matter" back to screaming about them. They yell about standing by the Constitution, or "restoring" it, only to immediately forget everything like the amendments after #2. Disaster aid needs to be "balanced" with cuts in something else, only to not bother with that when it's a disaster in their back yard. The only thing that seems to be saving them is the media's short-term memory problem, and that their voters never seem to grasp or care about the hypocrisy and contradictions.

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  3. They know there's 60 million votes out there no matter what they say or do, so why should they be concerned? I'd like it if we just accepted that this is how they roll and they manage to succeed a good deal of the time.

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  4. After what happened with Mitt it's time to remember what was said five minutes ago. The media can't help like they used to. We've got google today.

    Vic78

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We've got Google as well as YouTube and bartenders with camera phones.


      Maike

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  5. The fact that a joke like Rand Paul is taken seriously by the media is as depressing as what this buffoon says and does.

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  6. There is a very simple cure for Romnesia. It is called Truth. Maybe some day republicans will discover it.

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  7. Had Shakespeare met Rand Paul, he would've written "Get thee to a buffoonery."

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