Watching Rand Paul flip-flop on what he supposes his policies to be isn't even the least bit surprising anymore. He wrote (or lifted, whatever) an
op-ed chastising Obama for not doing enough to punish Russia and support Ukraine; David Corn notes that after Russia invaded Georgia, during the Bush administration,
Rand used it to polish his isolationist credentials:
One of the big things [for] the neocons—the people in the Republican Party sort of on the other side from where I come from—is they want Georgia to be part of NATO. Well, Georgia sits right on the border of Russia. Do you think that might be provocative to put them in NATO? NATO's treaty actually says that if they're attacked, we will defend them. So, if the treaty means something, that means all of a sudden we're at war with Russia. If Georgia would had become, Bush wanted Georgia to become part of NATO, had they been part of NATO, we'd be at war with Russia right now. That's kinda a scary thing. We have to decide whether putting missiles in Poland is gonna provoke the Russians. Maybe not to war, but whether it's worth provoking them, or whether we have the money to do it.
Well yes, but that was then and this is now. Rand Paul once made headlines for a long not-filibuster deploring the use of drones on American soil, only to revise that position rather considerably
after the donation checks had cleared. He may have inherited the tendency to spout crackpot things from his dad, and he certainly inherited the fan base, but his political views have proven very, very malleable. To be blunt, he plagiarizes them. He looks around at what the notions about each current issue the base finds appealing, starts saying those things, and if the base wants something else tomorrow you can be assured Rand Paul will sign his name to an op-ed saying that something else instead.
Grr. Yes, Rand Paul ticks me off. I admit it, and it's because Rand Paul's rise to prominence manages to touch on every one of the worst things in American politics. Blatant family "inheritance" of political careers? Check. Naked ambitions with no particular credentials or ideas to back them up? Check. A policy and value system that seems remarkably situational? Check. There's a world of seedy politicians out there, but Rand Paul is a one-man traveling snake oil dispensary.