Yes, Rand Paul made a mistake in blaming the GOP for ISIS

This week has been an object lesson for Rand Paul and his followers in framing the foreign policy debate. I would argue that Rand Paul made a tactical and political error in failing to frame his attack against President Obama and Hillary Clinton rather than the GOP. Here’s what I imagine Rand Paul’s advisers would coach him to say. Something along the lines of:

(In response to the ridiculous accusation from Lindsey Graham that Sen. Paul’s ideas helped ISIS grow.) I would say it’s exactly the opposite. ISIS exists and grew stronger because of Hillary Clinton and her lap dogs in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS. Hillary and her supporters also wanted to bomb Assad, which would have made ISIS’ job even easier. They created these people. ISIS is all over Libya because the same hawks in my party loved Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya, they just wanted more of it.

Here is what he actually said:

I would say it’s exactly the opposite. ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS. These hawks also wanted to bomb Assad, which would have made ISIS’ job even easier. They created these people. ISIS is all over Libya because the same hawks in my party loved Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya, they just wanted more of it.

Do you agree or disagree? Do you think Rand Paul could have worded his statement in a better way?

Watch the video that caused the dust-up here.

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