Rand Paul: “the best part of any debate is when you see people twisting themselves in knots, going against their own alleged…”

“the best part of any debate is when you see people twisting themselves in knots, going against their own alleged principles to get their desired result. Today, the subject is war powers. The hawks and the neocons somehow want you to believe, in contrast to all logic, that the President of the United States has the unitary power to go to war anytime he wants, anywhere, free from interference from Congress. That is their stated position anytime war comes up. Yet, today, in the NDAA, they say they now want a President that cannot leave a war without their permission. How absurd is that? They believe that a President has the power go to war anywhere, anytime, but when a President tries to remove troops they say: Oh, no, no. What we really want are 535 generals in Congress to tell him he can't leave a war. How absurd is that? It is exactly the opposite of what both the Constitution and logic would dictate. When Congress tried to impose time limits on troop engagements during the Iraq war, the neocons squawked that it would be a mistake to have 535 generals. They said the execution of the war was a prerogative of the President--until a President decided he wanted to leave a war. During the Bush administration, Dick Cheney and a team of legal apologists argued for something they call the unitary executive theory.…”