You know when you saw what looked like a hot girl standing at the bar and started moving in, but she turned around and scared you so that you trembled a little? Back at your table, a buddy asked you, "So how'd it go?," and you answered by gulping down your beer. The analogy applies to ladies as well. Remember when that happened to you? There was this apparent dreamboat at the bar, and you made eye contact, and maybe he started walking over and you noticed he wore one of those giant Tweety Bird or Tazmanian Devil t-shirts.
I'll let our LGBT friends tell us about their WTF moments in the comments, as this is a universal experience we can all laugh about. You see, it's only natural to make a few mistakes when something novel shows up and your database about this new phenomenon is incomplete. That's how adults should experience Rand Paul.
Same thing happened to me, politically speaking, with Louis Farrakhan back in 1991 or thereabouts. I heard the controversial Nation of Islam leader speak at length for the first time and listened intently for about 30 minutes, nodding my head vigorously the while, thinking this man was The Truth, and then--dramatically--abruptly--precipitously--he went off the deep end, like the Atlantic Ocean suddenly goes from 100 feet to a depth of two miles.
It's how the summit of Mount Everest suddenly becomes the bottom because of a few incredibly careless steps. I switched off the TV and thought, "Well, that's that."
Since then, for me, Farrakhan has been associated with spit-take analogies and the shock of sudden realization. The same should be the case with this generation's Farrakhan, Rand Paul. Neither is, or should be considered, a serious purveyor of thought for our society. Neither has nuanced, deep and well-thought-out worldviews. Granted, there are some people who mistake eccentricity, loudness or curly hair for nuance, depth or intelligence, respectively, but they are not the same things. Other people associate a person's favorable take on one or two issues as a completed worldview. That's also a mistake:
This is what a real worldview looks like in comparison:
Dartagnan has a great diary about Rand Paul up right now, and it provides a lot of helpful information about the Senator's voting record. Bob Cesca at thedailybanter.com wrote a piece about Rand Paul the other day that hit home. It reminded me of Louis Farrakhan. He named the political positions of Paul that run from silly to crazy to evil. I read all of his list, but the top three were enough to disqualify Paul from serious consideration for any job that doesn't require a name tag:
1) Rand Paul opposes gun control measures and voted with his party to filibuster the Manchin-Toomey amendment, which would’ve merely expended background checks to include internet sales and gun shows.
2) Rand Paul, like Ron Paul before him, has repeatedly objected to key provisions of the Civil Rights Act.
3) Rand Paul is opposed to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Just because he’s expressed an openness to a life-of-the-mother exception doesn’t make him a hero.
While you chew on that for a minute, here's Rand Paul plagiarizing:
I see Rand Paul as the political equivalent of a loopy heir to a middling Industrial-era fortune, not a General Electric heir or a Hershey's heir, but more like a small hardware store chain in a few counties in and around Knoxville heir, as he has inherited the fringe crowd who doted on his father. The sooner the media moves on from Paul the Dumber, and he really isn't as shrewd or self-aware as his crackpot father--just less seedy looking--the quicker we can concentrate on the real sharks swimming in the deep end of the Atlantic, like Jeb Bush.
Your flaws get magnified the more time you spend on television. An all-consuming campaign for the presidency will reveal everything, no matter how much a compliant media or staffers want to conceal such things as how dim-witted your nominee for Vice-President is, or how much your candidate hates the "47%." The campaign staffer who quickly removed Rand Paul from his hamburger and the DREAMER who wanted to shake his hand and discuss that issue is probably the most intelligent person on that staff:
You see, that campaign staffer knows that, just like with Louis Farrakhan, the nutty is bubbling just below the surface, and the question is how long can it be contained. Don't be fooled, though, it will come out.
Besides, Rand Paul's hair looks so cheap that people are starting to refer to it as a "One-Pay." Buh-zing!