The charisma-hungry Republicans are fanboys at heart, desperate for new heroes. So it's not surprising that the chairman of the Republican Party on Thursday said that Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) filibuster of CIA Director John Brennan was "completely awesome."
Like, totally.
During a stop on his listening tour in Iowa, Priebus was asked if Paul's filibuster over President Barack Obama's use of drones had energized the party.
"Listen, I think it was completely awesome," the RNC chairman said. "I was excited about it myself. I couldn't go to bed. I'm still excited about it."
(Hey Reince, we'd really rather not hear you use the words "bed" and "excited" in the same sentence, mmkay? Some things are private.)
"You know what I'm excited about?" Priebus continued. "I think our party needs some unity sometimes and it's not easy not having the White House and sometimes you've got scrap and claw for issues that can unify a party. Now, that's not totally unity, but this was great issue in standing up against the president, asking some simple and important questions. And I was happy to see so many other Republican senators support Sen. Paul."
(No, it's not easy having all that money, ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, Fox News, Politico, The Daily Caller, the American Enterprise Institute, the National Rifle Association... why, the Republican party is just like a little lamb, lost in the woods.)
According to the Des Moines Register, conservative activists in Iowa told Priebus that they wanted to see more integration between former Rep. Ron Paul's "liberty movement" and the Republican Party.
"Clearly, I think, in Iowa we have a liberty movement that we need to grow, that we need to welcome in our party," Priebus agreed. “Constitutional Republicans, liberty Republicans, is a big piece of a growing party that’s young, that cares about issues like freedom, the Constitution. And obviously there’s a core here.”
Not all Republicans, however, displayed the kind of "unity" over Paul's filibuster that Priebus seemed to be hoping for.
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) took the the Senate floor on Thursday to blast Paul's action as a political stunt.
"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 pointed out. “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?”
Strange says indeed, when Lindsey Grahamcracker is defending the Obama administration.
