Rand Paul is Dishonest and Lacks Integrity

“The dog ate my speech!”

“I will not lie down and say people can call me dishonest, misleading or misrepresenting, I have never intentionally done so.”

Rand Paul lying about being honest

It is surely no coincidence that on the same day President Obama tells the people of Virginia not to pick an ideologue as governor, Rand Paul says he wants to challenge people to duels when they tell the truth about them.

Specifically, I suppose, Paul wants to challenge a woman to a duel – Rachel Maddow – who is not only guilty of being a woman but a lesbian, and who also took two pages – Paul’s speech and a page from Wikipedia – and held them up beside each other to show Paul was guilty of plagiarizing.

The best way to handle accusations like this is not a duel, but to take two pages and hold them up beside each other. Just sayin’.

Imagine all the college students challenging their professors to duels when the website called Turnitin, by doing electronically what Maddow did with hard copies, shows that they’ve plagiarized.

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In Rand Paul’s case, we might have the first human to challenge software to a duel. My money is on the software.

But the bottom line is this: Paul, caught red-handed, should not even be joking about shooting people who dare to say he did something that he did. It would have been bad enough if he’d pulled a Bachmann and claimed “urban legend!” but shooting people for telling the truth?

Look at Ted Cruz, all upset because people are angry with his father for saying Obama needs to go back to Kenya. Cruz says, “It was an ill-advised joke. Sadly those who are trying to play the politics of personal destruction are trying to smear him and use that to attack me. That’s a shame, but it was an ill-advised joke.”

So Rafael Cruz is offensive and Ted Cruz is somehow the victim? Really?

I think we’d be better served if Cruz went back to Canada and took his crazy old father with him. If, that is, Canada will have them.

I wouldn’t be on it. They have hate-speech laws in Canada, after all.

The Republican modus operandi has been to say and do stupid, even crazy things. Their response to being called on it is to be even crazier, and if possible more stupid. And they think, somehow, that this behavior will win them elections.

And when they lose an election, blame the media for talking about them and costing them the election.

Yeah…I know, Jesus. Me too.

It is with good reason Nancy Pelosi is feeling good about 2014. Let’s not get cocky though; the GOP isn’t finished disenfranchising voters.

But do we see Republican craziness talked about in the mainstream media? No, we see things like, “Could it get any worse for Obama?” Worse for Obama? How about worse for Republicans? Because sad as it is, it CAN get worse for the most unpopular party in the United States. Republicans have shown time and again that for them, no bottom exists. They can always find a new low and even Republican strategists are recognizing this.

And like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, act offended and play the victim when they get called out.

Americans deserve mature, responsible adults in leadership roles. Republicans like to talk about taking personal responsibility but Rand Paul’s response to the plagiarizing scandal is about excuse-making.

If they don’t want to be accused of being crazy or stupid, Paul and other Republicans should stop doing and saying crazy and stupid things.

Rand Paul should not be wishing he could shoot people. If he doesn’t want to be accused of plagiarizing, he should not plagiarize. It’s really very easy.

It’s called honesty and integrity. Things with which Rand Paul does not have even a passing familiarity.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.