. . . Rand Paul's clever use of Obama's own words to oppose Obama's Libyan war has prompted both recognition that he has quickly become a leader in the U.S. Senate by the influential Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill, and has apparently geared up the Democratic smear machine, this time in the form of MSNBC's Laurence O'Donnell. O'Donnell claimed on his show The Last Word that Rand Paul had actually voted to support Obama's military attack on Libya:
He joined the Senate's unanimous consent to support the resolution backing a United Nations-enforced no-fly-zone over Libya. In fact, that Senate resolution calls for everything — everything — that President Obama has done in Libya, and it called for those actions before President Obama decided to do it. Rand Paul voted for that. He's voted for everything that the President has done in Libya — he's voted in support of it, and he voted for it in the form of a resolution introduced by liberal Democrats like Chuck Schumer, Ron Wyden and self-proclaimed socialist senator Bernie Sanders. That's right, Tea Party Senator Rand Paul voted with the only socialist senator to support what the President is doing in Libya before the President did anything in Libya.
O'Donnell then went on to audiotape a Rand Paul aide in a phone call who claimed there was no vote to support military intervention in Libya. O'Donnell then opined that
"I'm absolutely certain that the senior staff is lying to her."
Of course, the only one lying was Laurence O'Donnell. The resolution O'Donnell refers to (S. Res. 85) makes no mention of committing U.S. troops. The resolution does urge "the United Nations Security Council to take such further action as may be necessary to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Libyan territory." But nowhere in the resolution — a symbolic measure written to show generic support for people throwing off the Libyan dictator — does the resolution call for (or even mention) any use of force by the United States.
