Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News’ “The Kelly File” that Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul’s greatest obstacle to the presidency isn’t his testy exchanges with the press, it was his own policies. (VIDEO: Rand Paul Battles ‘Editorializing’ Today Show Host: ‘Let Me Answer A Question!’)
KRAUTHAMMER: His ideas are new and fresh, particularly on domestic affairs. His real problem is that the world has changed over the last several years and that our position abroad has cratered. And when before this happened– because the Obama retreat began in ’09, but doesn’t have its effect immediately, it took a half decade– but now the impact is being seen everywhere. As former defense secretary, his own defense secretary said, ‘the world is exploding all over.’
So for Rand Paul who was non-interventionist side of the GOP before all this, that was an advantage at a time we were reacting to the fatigue of the Iraq war and the Afghan War. But now that we are seeing results of the retreat, I think that’s working against him in a serious way. And that’s why you see the testiness and problems. I don’t think it is just a media problem or personality problem, that’s a policy problem. He’s got to tack back from the positions he took.
To give you one example, he rose to prominence with an hour speech on the floor of the Senate denouncing the drone attack on Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, an American citizen behind some bombings attempted against the U.S. I don’t think Rand Paul would make that same speech today, because it would be received very negatively.
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