Thursday, January 24, 2013

So Rand Paul and Hillary Clinton Walk Into a Hearing...

Your typical Foreign Relations Committee hearing when chaired by Rand Paul

So two people who want to be President of the United States walk into a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing; one is a Democrat and the other a Republican.  One plans to be heard while the other plans to do the hearing.  However, it turns out that rather than the Democrat be heard while the Republican does the hearing, the current Senator from Kentucky delivered an exceptional rhetorical falcon punch to the Democrat until-recently-Secretary of State regarding her questionable leadership over the embassy in Benghazi.  Realistically, it was more of a Dragon Ball Z-style mega punch by Senator Paul through the body of ex-Secretary Clinton.

“Had I been president at the time, and I found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you did not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post.”

Ouch!  The standard operating procedure is to offer one some ice for that burn.  However, ex-Secretary Clinton should be content with procuring some ice either through her health care benefits as a federal employee or she could even settle for ObamaCare as tirelessly campaigned for by her former boss’ administration.

At this moment in time I feel it quite appropriate to make the case that a Paul presidency would take great strides in divorcing the ill-begotten marriage between government dollars and private sector health care which is responsible for driving the prices of health insurance and health care sky high.  Dr. Paul was even instrumental in establishing eye clinics in Kentucky that catered to patients without medical insurance.  Furthermore, Dr. Paul subscribes to Austrian economic theory, a school of economics whose leading thinkers have been providing ideas for privatizing health care completely and in a way that makes care and insurance easily affordable.  (See Mises.org and search “health care” because I’m too lazy to explain myself when others have already done it so well for me.)

Returning to the wrestling-style smack down of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, it’s beyond redundant to state that Senator Paul thought Secretary Clinton handled the Libya situation poorly.  Defenders of Secretary Clinton may criticize Senator Paul for being overly critical or even for being partisan.  However, there is nothing partisan about Senator Paul’s views on foreign policy, including Libya.  Let’s flash back to the filibuster speech he delivered on the Senate floor on September 21, 2012.

“We gave money [to] dictators, from Saddam Hussein—who was once our ally receiving billions of dollars—to the Mujahedeen who were radical jihadists, but at the time we didn’t mind if you were a radical jihadist if you were our radical jihadist, because they were opposing the Soviet Union.  But the Mujahedeen eventually became the Taliban who are now our enemies.

“According to [scholars] Corey and Ryan, the world’s worst dictators have received $105 billion under the guise of official developmental assistance.  Instead of helping the poor, the assistance is aiding the ability of the dictators to remain in power.  In fact, it keeps them in power long enough that it enflames the populace that we end up having to... [go back] because of war.

“Why is there such a widespread anti-Americanism?  Because we propped up and gave money to so many despots, to so many dictators…  Why are we seeing people burning the American flag?  Why are we seeing such great unrest in 30 different countries?  Because our foreign aid and our military aid has propped up dictators who become over decades despotic, autocratic, who torture their people, prevent freedom from occurring, and then there’s a backlash [against us].

The particular context of this speech was cutting foreign aid to Pakistan, Egypt, and LibyaLike his father, retired Congressman Ron Paul, Senator Paul is ideologically opposed to foreign aid just as the founding fathers were.  His use of these three unstable countries as a gateway to cutting foreign aid is particularly clever, in my opinion at least.  The reasons he gave for cutting foreign aid to these countries essentially boils down to the following: the government of Pakistan has only made half-assed efforts to a half-assed approach in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan, extremism and civil strife are rampant in Egypt, extremists in post-war Libya killed American diplomats without ever being held to account for it, and American intervention in foreign affairs—especially in middle eastern countries torn by civil war and civil strife—only breeds hatred and ill will against America and Americans (hence the angry mob murdering the diplomats in Libya).

Had Senator Paul (or his father) been President, not a dime of American government money would have gone to the extremists infiltrating these governments, there would have been no Americans killed in Libya because there would have been no American presence there, and there would have been no incident over which to relieve Secretary Clinton.  The sad irony is that leftists are going to dislike Senator Paul even more now that “he was mean” to Hillary Clinton, even though Paul’s view that America shouldn’t police the world or tell other countries what to do is sharply in contrast to Clinton’s view yet very much in line with the left’s views of a humble foreign policy.  Oh well, the left’s hypocrisy doesn’t make Rand any less cool.


The best part for me in witnessing all of this is knowing that Senator Rand Paul will run for President in 2016.  This is especially sweet because Hillary wants to run as well—it’s no secret she’s wanted to be President for a long time—and the combined embarrassment from the leadership failure in the “Benghazigate” scandal with Senator Paul’s grilling only serves to shatter Clinton’s dreams of being POTUS while solidifying Paul’s foundation.  Because I’m currently killing downtime on a military base in the middle of nowhere, I will now entertain myself by applying Senator Paul’s awesome burn to the following film scenarios:

Star Wars: Had I been king of Alderaan and found out you ignored the beacon signals about the Death Star, I would have relieved you of your post.

The Lord of the Rings: Had I been Lord Elrond and found out you ignored the mystical signs that the Nazgul were hunting Frodo, I would have relieved you of your post.

Star Wars again: Had I been a general and found out you ignored the message signals informing us that the Empire was going to attack the rebel base on Hoth, I would have relieved you of your post.

Harry Potter: Had I been head of the Order of the Phoenix and found out you, as headmistress of Hogwarts, ignored the owl letters regarding death eaters onto the castle grounds, I would have relieved you of your post.

Star Wars yet again: Had I been Admiral Ackbar and found out it was a trap, I would have relieved you of your post.

Full Metal Jacket: had I found out you were not under sniper fire in Vietnam nor in Bosnia/Kosovo, I would have relieved you of your post.

Star Trek the Next Generation: Had I been head of the galactic federation and found out you ignored that giant Borg cube that flew by the Enterprise, kidnapped Captain Picard and turned him into a cyborg, I would have relieved you of your post as Number One.

The Sandlot: Had I been your father and found out you lost the Babe Ruth autograph ball in the Beast’s yard, I would have relieved you of your post.

Star Wars in real life: Had I been Steven Spielberg or Francis Ford Coppola and found out you were going to make prequels to the Star Wars Trilogy, I would have relieved you of your post.

Perhaps the only thing sweeter than seeing Senator Paul destroying Democrats would be witnessing him spearheading the effort to purge the neocons from Republican Party leadership.  Honestly, with friends like the “conservatives” who went out of their way to bring down Ron Paul’s candidacy, who needs enemies?


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USMC photo 090214-M-4150N-112 is in the public domain. Rand Paul photo by Gage Skidmore and used via CC BY-SA 2.0 license.  Both images obtained from Wikimedia Commons.  If FUNimation wouldn't be inclined to sue my pants off for using Dragon Ball Z fight stills, I would have used them in a heartbeat.

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