When GeorgeW was running for the presidency, he had a stock answer for questions about his history of moronic behaviors. They were youthful indiscretions, and they were in the past, and he would not go into that.
Yeah, that is sort of a copout. Without acknowledging anything in particular, he admitted that when he was young and stupid he did the sort of things that young and stupid people often do. But at least he responded to the question, where the answer actually had something to do with the question. He did not pretend to be someone else.
Rand Paul, however, did not take this path. Rather than defuse the issue he became irate. He wouldn't admit to doing anything that might be in character with the imbecilic stoner that the story seems to describe. Here is why that is a problem for me.
Paul has an image of himself. Fine, we all have that. But, if something, say facts, contradict that image, even in his distant past, rather than face those facts he becomes belligerent. It says that what he believes is much more important than what is true.
Every day in life, we face things that were not part of our plan. There are several ways we can handle this. Let's take a simplistic example. We have saved our money to buy a specific car, enough to pay cash for it. We go to the dealer, and find out that the price has gone up, and we no longer have enough. What can we do?
We can change what we are doing, to try to adapt to the new circumstances. Get a car that we actually can afford. We can try and change the environment itself. Go back and save some more money, come back when we have enough. Or we can take the approach that Rand Paul is trying to take. You keep trying to put the money into the salesman's hand, and snatch away the keys. Eventually you try assaulting the salesman and they call the police and you are taken away. Because you not having enough money is just not in your view of things,so you cannot accept it.
It is not that he did stupid shit when he was a college student that is important in all this. It is that pointing out something that does not jive with his view of himself and how he relates to the world causes such an inappropriate reaction. And it reveals how he will react when other facts do not agree with his prejudices. He is not interested in the truth, or what is right, he is interested in what he believes.
Unfortunately, that is a common trait of many tea bagger types. And that is why they are not fit to hold public office.
