What on earth is Rand Paul thinking in taking Obama’s side against Rubio on Cuba?

[Valin]

Hot Air:

Allahpundit

December 19, 2014

 

Noah already wrote a policy rebuttal to Paul’s position, which Paul elaborated on this afternoon in a new op-ed at Time. (The op-ed, unlike his tweets, doesn’t mention Rubio by name. Although it does approvingly cite … George W. Bush?) Anyone want to make the case that the politics of attacking Rubio on this issue were smart, at least? I can’t figure out why Rand would do it.

 

When I tweeted out my surprise a few hours ago, a dozen people tweeted back, “Maybe Paul’s just saying what he really believes.” No doubt. But the thing that distinguishes Rand from Ron and what makes him a legit contender for the nomination is that he’s willing to temper his foreign policy positions in order to make himself more appealing to mainstream conservatives. Remember when he complained earlier this year, as things got hairy in Ukraine, how certain Republicans (*cough*McCain*cough*) always seemed to want to “tweak” Russia? That was a fine libertarian/paleocon sentiment. A few weeks later, after Putin had gotten more aggressive and conservatives were demanding that Obama show some muscle, Paul took to Time magazine to demand “strong action” against Russia. Remember when he scoffed at the idea of intervening again in Iraq, with the U.S. effectively serving as “Iran’s air force” by bombing ISIS, only to decide a few months later as conservatives rallied for force that he would seek to destroy ISIS militarily as president? Last month he introduced a bill to formally declare war on the group that would even allow ground troops in certain limited circumstances. Remember when he seemingly endorsed containment of Iran on ABC’s Sunday news show, only to come back the next week after the predictable uproar on the right ensued with an op-ed insisting he was “unequivocally” not for containing Iran? It’s not just conservatives who’ve noticed these reversals. Members of Paul’s libertarian base like Jacob Sullum and others at Reason have noticed them too. And everyone understands what it’s about: Rand’s afraid that if he takes a traditional libertarian line on hot-button foreign policy matters, it’ll be too easy for 2016 rivals to convince tea partiers that he’s just like his old man after all and can’t be trusted to protect America. Watering down his libertarian impulses may be cynical, but it’s smart.

 

So … why pick a fight with Rubio, then? It would have been easy for him to oppose the embargo while hedging enough to make conservatives comfortable with his position. E.g., “I believe in the liberating power of trade and support lifting sanctions on Cuba, but I’m concerned that Senator Rubio is right that this will mainly be a windfall for the Castros, not the Cuban people. The president needs to do more to ensure that the benefits of trade flow to the public, not to the regime, starting with demanding democratic reforms.” At the very least, he should have emphasized the point made by Noah, Michael Brendan Dougherty, and many others that tossing a bunch of capital into a corrupt, cronyistic socialist swamp with no meaningful civic institutions is likely to produce a fascist oligarchy like modern Russia, not a truly free state. But Rand didn’t hedge; instead he went right at Rubio, mocking him with a too-cute-by-half crack that Rubio’s the real isolationist. Why? Why, with the primary campaign just weeks away from going full tilt, would he suddenly refuse to pander to a position that probably 85 percent of the right-wingers he’s trying to woo hold? And not only is his position one that’s disfavored by the right, however ambivalent the rest of America might be about the embargo these days, it’s one that righties will forever associate with Obama and his foreign policy “legacy.” Paul may think he’s waging war on Rubio on behalf of libertarianism but I bet most conservatives will see it as him waging war on behalf of Obama. It doesn’t even make sense at the micro level: As Harry Enten explains, while Cuban-Americans generally may be more conflicted about the embargo than they used to be, Cuban-American Republicans in Florida aren’t. And those aren’t the kind of voters you want to alienate if you’re eyeing the GOP nomination.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

[Valin]

We now take to Leftwing Nutterland...

 

 

"If Obama Ends The Cuban Conflict"...Translation: If Obama surrenders to the Castro brothers...

[Valin]

Rand Paul proves Marco Rubio’s point

Paul Mirengoff

December 20, 2014

 

During an impassioned appearance on Fox News to denounce President Obama’s new Cuba policy, Marco Rubio stated, in response to a question that cited Rand Paul’s pro-Obama view on the subject, that Paul “has no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to Cuba.” Having been called out, Paul had little alternative but to respond, and it would have been easy for him to so intelligently. There are, after all, respectable arguments that can be made in support of Obama’s position.

 

Predictably, however, Paul ended up proving that he doesn’t know what he’s talking on a scale that transcends Cuba policy.

 

Paul responded by accusing the Florida Senator of being an “isolationist.” Rubio wants to “retreat to our borders and perhaps build a moat,” Paul taunted.

 

How stupid can Paul get? Rubio was merely advocating the continuation of a policy followed by American presidents for 50 years.....(Snip)

[Valin]

It’s More like the Obama-Paul Foreign Policy That’s Failed, Not Obama-Rubio
Mario Loyola
December 22, 2014

 

Senator Marco Rubio has been a strident critic of President Obama’s foreign policy from the start, and nobody except a radical isolationist is likely to believe that there is any such thing as an “Rubio-Obama” foreign policy. There is, however, a long history of Senator Rand Paul and Obama saying essentially the same things on foreign policy, and — even worse — demonstrating approaches to discernment.

 

In their approach to Iraq, for example, Obama has taken most of a year to realize that the jihadist onslaught is much more than a civil war, and that the Islamic State safe haven in Syria and Iraq must be stamped out eventually before those safe havens can strike us here at home as they did on 9/11. That puts him just a few steps ahead of Rand Paul, who is more worried about the safe haven he thinks we created in Syria (and should leave alone) then about the one the Islamic State is creating for itself in an expanding swath of the Middle East.

 

(Snip)

 

Meanwhile, Paul stays busy inciting people to believe that the government is listening in on their cell phones without warrants (which it isn’t, unless you’re talking to terrorists abroad) and suggesting that President Bush went to war in Iraq in order to make billions for Halliburton (which is an obscene slander).

 

A lot of people agree with these sentiments, and Paul is very good at voicing what people are thinking – contradictions and conspiracy theories and all. What people should be asking themselves is whether this is someone who understands history and national security well enough for these difficult and dangerous times.