We’ve seen this game from Rand Paul before.

Step 1: Make a big show of having libertarian principles that make him break from normal Trump Republicans.

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Do what Republican leadership orders him to do.

Rand Paul’s principles are worth nothing, because he doesn’t vote on them. He talks about them, causes some mild consternation in the Republican Senate caucus, and then votes the way he is told at the end of the day.

Still, we’re obliged to play out the game even though we know how it ends. Check out these stupidly breathless headlines:

Kavanaugh May Face Stealth Hurdle in Confirmation: Rand Paul

Brett Kavanaugh’s Pro-Surveillance Record Could Haunt Him In SCOTUS Fight

Just frickin spare me. Rand Paul is not going to hold up the confirmation of an arch-conservative just because of his principles. Paul has no principles that he’s willing to fight for with his own Senate votes.

All he’s going to do is make a show of it. He did the rounds on Sunday, emoting “concern.” Here’s a report from Reason:

“I’m concerned about Kavanaugh,” Paul said on Fox & Friends, alluding to the judge’s views on the Fourth Amendment, which protects American citizens from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Paul explained that since President Donald Trump “did such a great job” with his first Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, he is keeping an “open mind” regarding Kavanaugh. But the Kentucky Republican is “worried” and “perhaps disappointed” that Kavanaugh may “cancel out Gorsuch’s vote on the Fourth Amendment.”… “I disagree completely,” Paul said. “And I think if we give up our liberty for security, we may end up with what Franklin said, and that’s neither—neither liberty nor security.”

Oh look, let’s everybody pay attention to Rand Paul again, a man who would really like to be president, but isn’t openly racist enough to win his party’s primary.

Privacy is probably the biggest difference between Kavanaugh and a guy like Gorsuch or the late Antonin Scalia. All three of them think the government is small enough to fit inside a woman’s womb, but the later two think the Fourth Amendment is a limitation on government power. Kavanaugh is more like Alito in that he thinks the Fourth Amendment is a threat to national security.

It’d be nice for this distinction to matter to some so-called “conservatives,” but we know it doesn’t. Even Paul himself gave up the game later in his Fox interview:

Paul said he’s “willing to meet” with the judge to see how he would rule on other issues. “There are 10 rights…10 amendments listed in the Bill of Rights, and so the Fourth Amendment’s one of them,” Paul said. “So we’re already down one, let’s see how he does on the other nine.”

(As an aside: THERE ARE MORE THAN TEN RIGHTS! Focusing on only the first 10 amendments kind of leaves out the 14th and 15th… WHICH ARE IMPORTANT to non-white people you Republican f**k!)

In the end, Paul is going to vote for a judge who is directly opposed to Paul’s own reading of the Fourth Amendment, because Paul’s Fourth Amendment principles are not something he’s actually willing to fight for. He’ll grandstand during the confirmation hearings and try to make himself look important. But at the end, the junior Senator from Kentucky will vote exactly how the senior Senator from Kentucky orders him to do.

“Stealth Hurdle”? What the hell are people talking about. Rand Paul is more like a “Garish Doormat.” Just this loud thing that demands attention but doesn’t impede a goddamn thing.

Kavanaugh May Face Stealth Hurdle in Confirmation: Rand Paul [Bloomberg News]

‘Concerned’ Rand Paul Isn’t Sure How He’ll Vote on Kavanaugh Confirmation [Reason]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.