Monday, October 21, 2013

From the WTF Department

From a new post at the Atlantic:
Perhaps most important for Republicans judging [Rand] Paul's 2016 viability and his potential to turn enthusiastic fans at rallies into GOP votes at the polls is this: At a time when Americans despise the notion of more foreign entanglements, he has somehow made President Obama and his Democrats look like interventionist hawks. "The thing that could transform our country and transform the youth vote and transform a lot of votes would be if, all of a sudden, the Democrats become the party of war. I think they really essentially are now," Paul said in an interview. Young people "fight all the wars," he said, and might look to the GOP "if there were a Republican Party that were more reluctant to go to war."
The sentence I put into boldface just doesn't parse.  It's President Obama and his Democrats, of course, who have made themselves look like interventionist hawks, by being interventionist hawks.  Rand Paul isn't engaging in some mysterious political sleight-of-hand for Paul to make them "look like" it.  Where he falls down is in fantasizing that there could be a Republican party that was more reluctant to go to war.  But both parties have a long history of warmongering; there's no realistic likelihood that either will break with tradition.