Don’t Blame Rand Paul For Our Next Terrorist Attack

The hysteria over the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata climaxed this weekend with a last-ditch effort to extend provisions of the Patriot Act that expired at midnight on Sunday. That effort was primarily, and vocally, blocked by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who correctly note that the United States can fight terrorism without collecting data on all Americans’ phone calls, but also opposes the USA Freedom Act bill that reforms that program.

Along the way, Paul took the extraordinary step of accusing his opponents of secretly wishing for a terrorist attack:

“Some of them, I think, secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me. One of the people in the media, the other day, came up to me and said, ‘oh, when there’s a great attack, aren’t you going to feel guilty you caused this attack?’ It’s like the people who attack us are responsible for attacks on us. Do we blame the police chief for the attack of the Boston bombers? The thing is that there can be attacks even if we use the constitution, but there have been attacks while collecting your bulk data. So the ones who say when an attack occurs it’s going to be all your fault, are any of them willing to accept the blame, we have bulk collection now, are any of them willing to accept the blame for the Boston bombing, for the recent shooting in Garland? No, but they’ll be the first to point fingers and say, ‘Oh, yeah it’s all your fault, we never should have given up on this great program.'”

Paul has a point, because without a terrorist attack to blame on him, how can his presidential juggernaut be stopped? Personally, I’m secretly rooting for the Rapture to occur next summer, so the Democrats can take back the House and the Senate.

At Monday’s White House daily briefing, Daily Mail White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers shopped Paul’s remarks to Press Secretary Josh Earnest, whose response was noteworthy for what it didn’t say…READ MORE

By: Tommy Christopher

Tommy Christopher is The Daily Banter's White House Correspondent and Political Analyst. He's been a political reporter and liberal commentator since 2007, and has covered the White House since the beginning of the Obama administration, first for PoliticsDaily, and then for Mediaite. Christopher is a frequent guest on a variety of television, radio, and online programs, and was the villain in the documentaries The Audacity of Democracy and Hating Breitbart. He's also That Guy Who Live-Tweeted His Own Heart Attack, and the only person to have ever received public apologies from both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.