Good God, this can’t be happening.   I’m in agreement on something with Rand Paul.  It’s a bizarre alternate-world reality and I’m not comfortable being there.  But so be it.  Mr. Tea Party extremist, has finally gotten something right.  He’s calling for a class-action lawsuit to pull back the U.S. Government’s ability to spy on its own people though massive data collection.  In other words, he wants we the people, to demand that our government leaders abide by the dictates of the Constitution.

What a novel idea.  He’s demanding that his colleagues in the House and Senate honor the oath they took to defend the Constitution.  I know he’s a Libertarian, who at times appears to be circling Mars intellectually, but this is something we all need to think about – apart from the fact that Rand Paul is a member of the House, and the House has apparently known about and condoned the Internet and telephone spying for years, so he could have gotten on this bandwagon a little earlier (maybe he did and I don’t know about it), I am in full agreement with this push to restore a bit of our privacy.   I (gulp) am in agreement with Rand Paul.  On this one issue.  On most other issues I continue to believe he’s so far to the right as to represent a danger to the Republic.

There are lots of “strange bedfellows” out there right now and it goes directly to the issue of Barack Obama’s political schizophrenia.  He can’t be a liberal Democrat on healthcare reform only to turn around and offer cuts in Medicare and Social Security.  He can’t preach about the need to close Gitmo, and then sign off in favor of the continued use of undeclared drone warfare and rendition.  He can’t remain all but silent about the nation’s leaders setting aside sections of the Constitution, while he continues the policies of George W. Bush, and then argues that he called for a national discussion on government spying only to have his pleas ignored.   He’s the President of the United States.  If he yells loud enough and long enough, people will listen.  He has been and continues to be, too conciliatory.  Too nice.  Too timid.  Too much like a debate captain rather than the leader of the free world.  We continue to be better off with a Democrat in the White House, but Mr. Obama’s act is getting old. The buck continues to stop at the President’s desk.  It’s a message Barack Obama, who campaigned as a liberal Democrat and then served as a centrist Republican,  never seems to have received.   It was perhaps inevitable that the far-right would join progressives in opposition to Mr. Obama. At least on some issues.  You can’t satisfy everybody.  You just can’t.