Dick Polman: "If Rand Makes it to the Oval Office, I will Personally Climb Mt. Everest and Chisel his Curly Locks into the Rocks."

Polman writes:

Paul rose to prominence as a rare Republican skeptic of military interventionism, but lately he has tried to "evolve," to make himself more palatable to the party's predominant hawks. Problem is, the hawks don't believe him; they think he's just a flip-flopping phony. Meanwhile, many of his original supporters are ticked off; they think he has abandoned his principles. Here's libertarian activist Justin Raimondo: "For the life of me, I can't figure out what he really believes - where he really stands, especially when it comes to foreign policy."

Raimondo got that right. Paul already has a rhetorical record that is Romneyesque.

He used to rebuke America for "unlimited involvement in foreign wars." But last October he said that "America cannot disengage from the world," and that despite the pitfalls of being involved, "ultimately we must be willing and able to defend our country and our interests."

So he ends up satisfying nobody. His libertarian base (which isn't big enough to win the delegate-rich primaries) thinks he's trimming his principles, and traditional party hawks distrust his trimmings.

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