In an interview with National Review published Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called the criticism he received from Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) over his recent 13-hour filibuster a bit too personal.
From National Review:
McCain and Lindsey Graham, the foreign-policy grandees in the Senate Republican conference, have dismissed Paul’s libertarian views on national security as the “ill informed” posture of one of the party’s “wacko birds.”
Paul has no problem with McCain engaging in debate, “but I think if you’re going to debate, it’s better to leave names out,” he says. “I spoke for 13 hours and never mentioned his name or Lindsey Graham’s name. They spoke for about 20 minutes and decided to use my name quite a bit, including some synonyms I wasn’t aware of, like different types of animals.”
McCain read extensively from a critical Wall Street Journal editorial on the filibuster and said Paul did a disservice to American citizens by making them feel they could be in danger from their own government.
And Graham said: “Noncombatants under the law of war are protected, not subject to being killed randomly. So to suggest that the president won’t answer that question somehow legitimizes that the drone program is going to result in being used against anybody in a room having a cup of coffee, to me, cheapens the debate.”
Read the full National Review piece here.
