a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
- Shakey
Rand Paul commandeered the Senate flour on Wednesday to deliver a 10 hour long protest against the renewal of the Patriot Act. Meanwhile, his campaign team were sending out fundraising appeals to capitalize on the attention he was garnering.
And then?
Paul voluntarily stepped aside just before the clock struck midnight. Which means he had no meaningful affect on the Senate schedule, and he did nothing to block the Patriot Act from moving forward.
I'm sure the first then Paul did upon leaving the floor - after having a wee - was to call his manager and ask how much money they took in.
He's as big a fraud as his father.
Update: Amusing commentary from Alexandra Petri in WaPo:
Filibuster. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
...it doesn’t count as a boycott if you refuse to eat in a restaurant during the hours when it isn’t open. It’s nice that Cruz and Paul have such strong feelings and want to share them at such length, but they need to use another word for these speeches — “pointless harangues,” maybe? “Transparent publicity grabs?” “Rambles?” (I know those don’t have quite the heroic ring that filibuster does, but it’s important to be precise.)
...But we need another word for what is going on. Right now, it is just Rand Paul talking at length about a subject that interests him. He can talk straight through until 1 p.m. tomorrow and it still won’t be a filibuster. It will just be a speech that does not cause the Senate to function any worse than usual. (Granted, this is not hard.) Until he actually starts holding up Senate business, this is just a — fauxlibuster? Bit of Rand-standing? Whatever it is, a filibuster it ain’t, and we need to stop calling it one.