Rand Paul’s Wacko Public Meltdown

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/rand-pauls-wacko-public-meltdown

Just when Sen. Ted Cruz’s self-promoting extremism seemed to create room for a far-right 2016 rival who wouldn’t scare children (and the donor class), Sen. Rand Paul is blowing his big chance.

Last week the New York Times reported that in the wake of Cruz’s implosion, Paul’s aides had taken to calling Cruz “the chief of the wacko birds,” using John McCain’s memorable epithet for the junior Texas senator. Paul himself, Jonathan Martin reported, “has quietly been reaching out to more establishment forces within the Republican Party, trying to prove to big donors and mainline Republican organizations that he is more than a Tea Party figure or a rerun of his father’s failed candidacies.” And establishment Republicans were beginning to use the word “grown” and “matured” to describe Paul.

That’s not the word they’re using today, on the heels of a crazy appearance on ABC’s “This Week” where he wished he could challenge the journalists who’ve accused him of plagiarism to a duel.

On the one hand, the revelation that he lifted material from several speeches as well as whole pages of his book from other sources, without attribution, isn’t necessarily a 2016 candidacy-ender. What’s most politically self-destructive is Paul’s bizarre reaction to the charges – which really aren’t “charges,” they’re fact. Instead of admitting he or someone on his staff made an error and promising to toughen his standards, he’s attacked Rachel Maddow, who found the first instance of plagiarism, repeatedly and personally.

[davidpdx]

1. Paul is having a mental meltdown

As Sean Penn said have them committed.

[malaise]

2. From last night's show

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

[B Calm]

3. I believe Rachel Maddow has got to him, lol!

[Ikonoklast]

4. Never met one Randian Libertarian that was not partly nuts, in one way or another.

Cults attract people like this, dogma always trumps reality.