Move over, Ted Cruz: Rand Paul’s wacko public meltdown
The proven plagiarist trashes his haters and wishes he could challenge them to a duel. Whos the wacko-bird now?
BY JOAN WALSH
Just when Sen. Ted Cruzs self-promoting extremism seemed to create room for a far-right 2016 rival who wouldnt 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 Cruzs implosion, Pauls aides had taken to calling Cruz the chief of the wacko birds, using John McCains 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 fathers failed candidacies. And establishment Republicans were beginning to use the word grown and matured to describe Paul.
Thats not the word theyre using today, on the heels of a crazy appearance on ABCs This Week where he wished he could challenge the journalists whove 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, isnt necessarily a 2016 candidacy-ender. Whats most politically self-destructive is Pauls bizarre reaction to the charges which really arent charges, theyre fact. Instead of admitting he or someone on his staff made an error and promising to toughen his standards, hes attacked Rachel Maddow, who found the first instance of plagiarism, repeatedly and personally.
full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/04/move_over_ted_cruz_rand_pauls_wacko_public_meltdown/