Sen. Rand Paul Rips Obama's Moral Authority

by John M. Curtis
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Copyright May 27, 2013
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          Showing that he’s unofficially the Tea Party’s choice in 2016, 50-year-old first term Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blasted President Barack Obama for lacking the “moral authority” to lead the country dogged by ongoing scandals.  Citing the budding IRS scandal, Benghazi debacle and AP-leak controversy, Paul insisted Obama lacked the “moral authority to lead the nation.”  After grabbing headlines March 7 with a 13-hour Senate filibuster on Obama’s predator drone program, the Tea Party-libertarian-leaning former ophthamologist cites sophomoric Constitutional arguments questioning the president’s authority to order remote-controlled attacks on terrorist targets that potentially involve U.S. citizens.  Paul never questioned former President George W. Bush “moral authority” to preemptively attack Iraq, getting the U.S. into a nine-year-war costing over $1 trillion and 4,886 lives.

             Paul has become the media’s latest pigeon to generate better ratings in an otherwise slow news cycle, where the economy’s making progress and Bush’s foreign wars are winding down.  While Paul blasted Obama’s “moral authority,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) ripped the president for his reluctance to mire the U.S. in another Mideast war in Syria.  Looking to next year’s Midterm elections, the GOP hopes for more scandals and prays that the economy tanks to give them some kind of momentum.  No one in the GOP fraternity has given Obama any credit for ending the Iraq War or helping Wall Street rise 100% since taking office Jan. 20, 2009.  “I think the constellation of these scandals ongoing, really takes away from the president’s moral authority to lead the nation,” said Paul, hyping the controversies to serve his political ambitions and that of his Party.

             Unable to catch up to modern warfare, Paul blasts Obama’s used of the sophisticated predator drone program, something Bush used extensively to combat asymmetric threats to U.S. national security.  Paul had no problem with Bush mobilizing the U.S. military in Afghanistan or Iraq to combat terrorist threats in a post-Sept. 11 world.  He likes to criticize Obama as commander-in-chief for aggressively apply the CIA and Pentagon’s predator drone program to go after terrorists in remote locations.  “I was pleased with his words and I was please with the—that he did respond to this,” said Paul, referring to the president’s May 24 National Defense university speech, clarifying his position on the predator drone program.  Paul criticizes Obama for violating terrorists’ “due process” in applying the predator drone program yet has no problems deploying the U.S. military in foreign wars.

             Paul’s libertarian arguments take basic Constitutional principles out of context and use them to indict the president.  Whatever happens with scandals currently brewing in Washington, they’ll ultimately get resolved one way or another, including hearings, special counsels or eventual prosecutions.  When Rand rips the president’s use of the predator drone program, he forgets that the president is the commander-in-chief.  Obama doesn’t have to check the IDs of terrorists, either foreign or domestic, to check the nationality or citizenship of terrorist plotting attacks on foreign soil.  “However, there still is a question in my mind of what he thinks due process is.  You know, due process to most of us is a court of law.  It’s a trial by jury . . . “ said Paul, citing the most absurd way to prosecute the war on terror.   Paul had no problems sticking “enemy combatants” in Guantanamo when Bush was in office.

             Paul knows that the predator drone program lies within the president’s right as commander-in-chief to protect the nation’s national security.  Obama has wanted to close Guantanamo Bay not because it violates “battlefield detainees’ rights” but because it’s a PR nightmare for U.S. foreign policy.  It’s difficult for the U.S. to criticize gulags and human rights violations when it maintains its own torture chamber.  Paul criticized the CIA’s predator drone strike against U.S.-born-al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki.  “If you are conspiring to attack America and you are a traitor, I would try you for treason,” said Paul, in one of the most illogical dislocations from reality.  According to Paul’s logic, Obama must spend millions to order U.S. Special Forces to pluck terrorist alive from the battlefield, read them their Miranda Rights, charge them with treason and prosecute them in U.S. courts.

             Paul’s public statements not only disqualify him from 2016 they should give his Senate colleagues reason to watch him closely.  Whether he’s partisan or not, making crazy statements to the press make good headlines but raise red flags about his fitness to serve in the U.S. Senate.  “If you don’t come home for trial, I would try you in absentia.  And then the death penalty has been used repeatedly through our history for treason, but a judge looks at the evidence . . .” Paul told ABC News’ George Stepahnopoulos on “This Week.”  While there are still some legitimate questions about “prisoners of war,” ”battlefield detainees” or “enemy combatants,” there’s no ambiguity what to do with foreign terrorists, whether U.S.-born or not.  Whatever Obama’s problems, his use of the precious tax dollars.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.