U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is going to offer the official Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union message tonight.

He’ll be followed by another Republican senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, who’s going to give the tea party response.

Huh? What gives here?

Rubio was elected in 2010 after a bruising campaign in Florida and after which he was ordained as the golden boy of the GOP’s tea party wing. He’s conservative, “telegenic” (which is code for “handsome”), smart and eloquent. Rubio does a fine job, in my view, of representing the Republicans’ new brand, which is a sort of in-your-face conservatism that seems to play well with the party’s hard-core base voters.

Rubio’s response ought to be enough to satisfy the Loyal Opposition, yes? Apparently not.

Now up steps Sen. Paul, who’s considerably less graceful verbally than his colleague, Rubio. It was Paul, you’ll remember, who told then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that had he been president at the time of the Benghazi, Libya attack that killed four people this past September, he would have “relieved you of your post.” To which many millions of Americans, myself included, laughed out loud at the very idea of a President Rand Paul.

All this double-dip Republican response to a Democratic president’s State of the Union speech only illustrates the conflict that’s raging within the once-proud “Party of Lincoln.” Indeed, Honest Abe likely is spinning in his grave.

I find it rather sad.