Rand Paul

I think Rand Paul did really well in this interview, and I don't think it's fair to say that he deals in "sweeping generalizations". I think he sounds as level-headed and intelligent as Obama did when he was running against Hilary Clinton.

His position is basically that the U.S. gov't can't keep behaving like "everything is an emergency". He wants to downsize it from a four trillion dollar operation to a two and a half trillion dollar operation. Like he says, that's still a very big government. If you want specifics, he refers you to a book by Christopher Edwards. Don't say that's skirting the issue. If you're going to downsize a government in that scale, you'd better have read a few books on the subject.

Most importantly, it seems to me that he'd take seriously the idea that pulling out of Afghanistan and legalizing pot are two very good ways of reducing needless government spending. So I'm looking at him with interest. He doesn't seem corrupted.

I know he's said some disconcerting and puzzling things in the past. But I mostly cringed with him, not at him.