Senator Aqua Buddha, who apparently has been dragoonedinto a nerdvana relitigation of the congressional fight over Internal Improvements -- Christamighty, isn't anything ever really settled? Do we have to fill in the Erie Canal now? -- is not having a very good week in his battle against the Blog's Five Minute Rule regarding anything said or done politically by any member of the Paul family. To recap: the Five Minute Rule states that any member of the Paul family will make sense on any political issue for exactly five minutes. Precisely at the 5:00:01 mark, however, he will say something so far off the rails that you will find yourself looking at him as though he has sprouted a reptilian head out of his sternum. This may include Crazy Uncle Liberty (!)'s discussion of economic problems that suddenly veers into goldbuggery, or Aqua Buddha's concern over government overreach that gets him crossways with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Or, it seems, it also applies to positions once held that become inconvenient when one is trying to sell oneself as a possible president of the United States. The Five Minute Rule appears to have an application in the area of political cowardice, too.

For example, it seems that Aqua Buddha was back in Iowa the other day, chowing down at lunch with Congressman Steve King (R-Hallucinogen). At one point during the meal, a couple of kidswho would be covered by the DREAM act came over to chat. Steve King got up and was pleasantly condescending to them. (Perhaps their calves were in order. Who knows?) Aqua Buddha, on the other hand, stuffs what's left of his burger down his gullet and -- 4:59:58,4:59:49...-- flees the scene, lest someone photograph him shaking hands with inconvenient brown people, which he one day might have to explain to the hayshakers in Council Bluffs.

And then there's Israel, on which Aqua Buddha has done himself a Cirque du Soleil over the past couple of years.

Paul, who was in Omaha campaigning for Nebraska Senate candidate Ben Sasse before a three-day tour of neighboring Iowa, may not like it when reporters bring up his proposal from three years ago to end all U.S. foreign aid - including to Israel. But that was in fact his position. In 2011, the newly elected Paul proposed a budget that would have cut $500 billion from the federal budget in part by cutting off foreign aid to all countries, including financial grants to Israel. The United States provides about $3 billion to Israel annually, and last week the Senate approved $225 million to help support Israel's Iron Dome technology, which blocks rocket fire from Gaza. (Paul supported the measure.) Paul, in his first months in office, however, defended phasing out aid by saying that the U.S. could no longer afford to give cash to other countries. "I'm not singling out Israel. I support Israel. I want to be known as a friend of Israel, but not with money you don't have," Paul said in 2011 during an interview with ABC News. "We can't just borrow from our kids' future and give it to countries, even if they are our friends."

Oh?

4:59:57, 4:59:58, 4:59:59...

Paul, a possible 2016 presidential contender whom some in the GOP regard as insufficiently pro-Israel, has recently changed his tune on foreign aid to the Jewish state. His budget proposals since 2001 have included aid to Israel.

(I'm assuming that "2001" is a typo since, back then, Aqua Buddha was still a self-regulating opthamologist.)

This campaign is going to be a laff riot. I'm telling you.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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