Old Guard, Meet the New Guard

In response to Sen. Rand Paul's 13 hour filibuster last week, Sens. McCain and Graham, the usual suspects in these matters, publicly blasted Sen. Paul to the media.  Here is what McCain said to reporters shortly after the end of the filibuster:

McCain quoted heavily from a Wall Street Journal editorial that slammed Paul’s filibuster on the Obama administration’s drone use, including a line that said “If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in college dorms.”

And Lindsey Graham has this to say:

“To my Republican colleagues, I don’t remember any of you coming down here suggesting that President Bush was going to kill anybody with a drone, do you?” Graham said. “They had a drone program back then, all of a sudden this drone program has gotten every Republican so spun up. What are we up to here?”

And he went on to explain why Paul's filibuster made him swich his vote from a "no" to a "yes" in cofirming John Brennan to head the CIA:

“I was going to vote against Brennan until the filibuster. So he picked up one vote!” Graham said. “It’s become a referendum on the drone program.”

Though I didn't fully agree with Sen. Paul's argument--that the Constitution forbids the use of lethal force inside its borders against American citizens who work with the enemies of the United States--Sens. McCain and Graham's thundering from the pulpit against Paul and other Senate freshmen who helped him out--including Sens. Cruz and Lee--falls completely flat.  Paul Mirengoff gives us some reasons why:

Let’s start with McCain. Wasn’t he the guy who recently rebuked Ted Cruz for making disrespectful comments about Chuck Hagel? Ridiculing Paul and his libertarian supporters, on the Senate floor, strikes me as inappropriately disrespectful. 

Paul’s filibuster may have been a political stunt or it may have been a genuine expression of the full extent of his outrage. Perhaps it had elements of both. In any case, McCain should not assume the worst. By doing so in inflammatory language, McCain makes it look like his beef is personal. With McCain, it usually is. 

As for Graham, his question — where were Paul, Cruz, and those like Marco Rubio and Jerry Moran who supported the filibuster, during the Bush era — is easily answered. They weren’t in the U.S. Senate. 

In Paul’s case, there’s every reason to believe he would have opposed Bush’s use of drones. Consistency isn’t the junior Senator from Kentucky’s problem when it comes to national security.

In addition, there is no reason why McCain and Graham had to publicly denounce Paul.  They could have just as easily as kept their mouths shut and shared these thoughts with each other in private.  They still don't seem to get the way the media works against Republicans in particular and conservatism in general.

Lastly, why Graham would switch his vote on something as important as who will be the next CIA Director because of the conduct and words of someone on which that vote had exactly zero to do with is a complete mystery.  The vote simply wasn't a "referendum on the drone program," Senator Graham to the contrary notwithstanding.