Rand Paul : An Appreciation

[bedsitter23]

Politics is hard.

If an ambassador like the Worm can't bring diplomacy to North Korea, what chance does anyone have.

Like the United Nations, I would probably just go and get smashed.

So credit to Rand Paul for his 12 hour Filibuster.

It was as all of your libertarian friends will tell you, just like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

That's silly of course, but we live in a world where the best political commentary comes from a show that used to be hosted by Craig Kilborn.

We live in a world where Subway runs an ad that implies on Presidents Day, Abe Lincoln, George Washington and Ben Franklin all celebrate.



So, I suppose I am fine among a society who wishes things were like they were back when Tommy Lee Jones was in the Senate.

Rand Paul's filibuster was an awesome thing.  Even liberal friends were texting me in the same way baseball fans tell you about a perfect game.

Rand's big night was probably the biggest political moment since Clint Eastwoo'd's speech at the GOP convention.  Except more marginal, lost in the higher cable channel number of CSPAN2.

That said, a comparison to Eastwood seems proper.  Paul's speech was no Mr Smith, and Eastwood was no Grandpa Simpson, but it was the buzz around the event, not the actual event that is the important thing.

Rand's speech wasn't anything that wasn't typical CSPAN fare.  I did tune in to him all through the night.  Indeed, i was impressed that Rand kept talking and seemed to continually bring relevant words out of his mouth, going back and forth with a Wyoming Senator like an experienced tag team.

I didn't stay until the late hours, when things got fun.  Senators bringing Paul apples and water, Ted Cruz reading lines from Patton and Henry V, and GOPers who had earlier in the night been treated to dinner by Obama sharing details.  The thing ended with Paul calling it for an act of nature, which means he hadn't thought of those wacky morning shows think of, wearing an adult diaper.

Of course, at the end of it all, Paul had pissed off both Democrats and Republicans, so he must have done something right.  That said, Paul is obviously gearing towards the 2016 election, and although this is most likely a point in his favor, I can't help but think that Chris Christie struck a better chord with the voter in two minutes than Paul did in twelve hours of work.

For more commentary, I will point you over to defFrog and for a fun history lesson, then head over to Foreign Policy, which contains these all-time gems.

In 1924, a Rhode Island Senate filibuster extended 42 continuous hours over three days and "began with a mass fistfight over control of the gavel and ended when Republican operatives placed a poison-soaked rag behind [Democratic Lieutenant Governor Felix] Toupin to gas him out of the presiding officer's chair," according to Gregory Koger's Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate.

...

Perhaps the most dramatic filibuster, though, occurred in April 1963 in the Philippines. With legislators evenly divided between supporters of the Liberal Party incumbent, Diosdado Macapagal, and Nationalist Party up-and-comer Ferdinand Marcos, it came down to the Senate to decide the presidency. The day before the scheduled vote, Marcos visited Liberal Senator Roseller Lim, offering to pay off his home loans in exchange for a swing vote. Lim refused and Marcos, incensed, swore at him and his family before departing.

The next day, the Liberal senators were a man down -- Senator Alejandro Almendras was still en route, returning from a throat operation in the United States. Lim took the podium and spoke for 18 hours and 30 minutes -- he could not sit or eat, and he urinated in his pants at the podium rather than allow the vote to occur without the Liberals' crucial swing vote. Finally, Lim yielded the floor upon hearing that Almendras's fight had landed, and collapsed onto a waiting stretcher after casting his vote