The wave of left-wing reactionism to Rand Paul has nearly crested, but surfs still up! From Crooks and Liars, a little Glenn Beckery based on (of all things) a Tweet from a Neo Nazi:

“Neo-Nazis have just as much right as anyone else to contribute to campaigns… Clearly, the expectation is for their guy to do right by them when he gets there, and frankly, there’s no reason for them to doubt that, based on the evidence.”

SPARE. ME. I have not yet been blown away by Rand, but have you seen his competition? Kentucky Democrat Jack Conway is such an off-the-shelf politician that  he probably comes three to a blister pack! His face looks like it was made to wear pancake makeup, and his rhetoric is so trite he may as well have a draw string. “Brighter tomorrows” and “Now-is-the-time’s” roll off his tongue as though he were the hypnotized candidate in a scheme hatched by Lex Luthor.

Back to Rand. Soft spoken, somewhat clumsy with the English language in the manner of his father Ron Paul, hair that looks like a pile of dog shit… and willing to tell the truth about his actual philosophies, at least so long as he can avoid a backlash from the right and the left, neither of whom actually welcome conversations about controversial subjects (though they doth protest otherwise).

The thing that liberals have yet to understand is, at the end of the day there are going to be Republicans in Congress no matter what, and Rand Paul is the kind we can deal with.

There are three types of conservatives vying for Tea Party momentum: one faction is the theocrat/tinfoil hat brigade belonging to Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. A second is the plutocrat wing of Gingrich and Romney, and the third and most imperiled is the libertarian wing. But if I had to name the Republican least likely to appear on the Sunday talk shows trying to repeal the Bill of Rights the next time some Pakistani parks a U-Haul full of horse manure and bottle rockets in Times Square, it would be Rand Paul.

Rand’s style of Libertarianism is largely unfamiliar to the public at large, but any attempt to play him as a racist or regressive are premature. He believes in smaller government, yes, and he has actually made a bold move by critiquing the Civil Rights Act. The only thing ballsier would be running a cartoon of Mohammed in his campaign literature. Is the Civil Rights Act as it is written the best law for our country? I’d be willing to bet it is. But then again, I have never been asked to consider the question before. Thanks Rand!

There’s lots of real life objections that can be thrown against Rand Paul that don’t require Code Pink to start attending his rallies, especially his Atlas Shrugged attitude towards business. His abortion stance is also foolhardy. But slandering him with charges of Nazisim? Are we really going to go down the Fox News road of playing the Hitler card every time an anti-status quo candidate rears his head?

I think Rand Paul is probably naive and Utopian, but he is also against the PATRIOT Act. Has Obama come out against that? Rand takes a jaded eye towards the defense budget and isn’t afraid to discuss the Military Industrial Complex in pejorative terms, either. Obama ramped up the Afghan War and the world’s goody two-shoes gave him a Nobel Peace Prize for it!

Time will tell whether Rand Paul is actually his own man and continues to speak his mind, or if the Republicans (aided and abetted by Rachel Maddow and others who can’t see the forest for the trees) prove to him that Americans on the left and right actually prefer a Party of No.