I thought my ears were plugged up the other day when I heard about Sen. Rand Paul’s comments regarding the use of drones in the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
The Kentucky Republicans said he would have favored deploying the drones to find the Tsarnaev brothers. My first reaction was, “What the … ? Did this guy just filibuster the nomination for CIA director John Brennan because he wanted the administration to promise never to use drones in the United States – against U.S. citizens?”
That’s what he said, over and over and over again … for 13 hours during his filibuster on the floor of the Senate.
He finally got a pledge from Attorney General Eric Holder that the U.S. wouldn’t use the unmanned aircraft. It was then that he ended his filibuster.
Now Paul says the government should have used the drones to hunt down the brothers who are believed to killed those people along the marathon route.
Granted, he didn’t say anything specific about firing missiles from the drones to kill the men? He just wanted to use them as surveillance tools, I reckon.
Paul has denied he has changed his views on drones. I’m not so sure this isn’t a serious policy reversal. Isn’t this guy supposed to be a straight-shooter who ran for the Senate vowing to be true to his tea party/libertarian convictions?