Here's a more modest interpretation. Paul believes the many millions of dollars that Cheney had earned from Halliburton left the vice president with divided loyalties; that his time there affected his judgment in all the complicated ways one worries about whenever huge conflicts of interest are at play; and that Halliburton was one factor, though far from the only one, in pushing America to war.

I find that a more plausible reading of Paul's views.

What's my best guess? That circa 2002 Cheney earnestly thought the Iraq invasion was the right thing to do, but that his judgment had been inevitably biased and compromised by his time working for a defense contractor, and that the understandable loyalties he formed while at the company probably did influence his decision-making in some way, as did the vast sums of money that his former colleagues stood to earn if an invasion and occupation were to occur. It would take an unusually honorable person to not be influenced by so much money and power, which is why defense contractors spread it around Washington, D.C. That also seems consistent with what Paul said, and may or may not be what he meant.

But even though I wouldn't bet that "Cheney, a corporate shill, was more loyal to Halliburton, and the millions of dollars he earned from the company, than to the United States"—even though I don't think Paul would put it that way either—it seems to me that it's dangerous, to dismiss that possibility as if it's a kooky conspiracy theory.

Enter Michelle Cottle writing at The Daily Beast:

As someone who opposed the Iraq War, I enjoy watching Cheney get slapped around on the issue as much as the next gal. But it’s one thing to accuse the former veep of ideologically driven Machiavellianism; ’tis quite another to suggest that he did what he did out of loyalty to his Halliburton cronies. That is a far darker charge that, while already generating glee on the left, is also the kind of right-on-the-knife’s-edge-of-nuttiness conspiracy-spinning likely to bite Paul on the butt as he tries to capture his party’s nomination.

Is this really the "edge of nuttiness"? I suspect Cottle's reflexive resistance to Cheney-as-crony has less to do with its implausibility than with our aversion to thinking an American elected official could be capable of something so evil and depraved.

But come on. That's just naive.

J. Edgar Hoover existed. So did the U.S. government employees who followed orders to try blackmailing Martin Luther King into suicide. Abu Ghraib happened. Americans have sold secrets to depraved regimes.

To safeguard corporate profits and personal power, various CEOs hid the fact that smoking their products kills people; others polluted the drinking water of whole communities; still others decided that a recall would be more expensive than product liability litigation, and stood by passively as an actuarially predictable number of motorists burned up in cars. American CEOs have knowingly relied on slave labor in Third World countries. They've collaborated with Nazis and hidden from athletes the fact that the sport they play will cause permanent brain damage. This is to say nothing of the perennial existence of black-market arms brokers and the long history of war profiteering.