Though Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is currently the front-runner to gain the Republican nomination for President in 2016, he might encounter even more resistance from traditional conservatives after a video surfaced in which he draws parallels between former Vice President Dick Cheney’s role at Halliburton and the Iraq War.
In the video – originally pointed out by Mother Jones magazine – Paul says the following while speaking at Western Kentucky University on April 7 2009, five years ago to the day:
“There's a great YouTube of Dick Cheney in 1995 defending [President] Bush No. 1 [and the decision not to invade Baghdad in the first Gulf War], and he goes on for about five minutes. He's being interviewed, I think, by the American Enterprise Institute, and he says it would be a disaster, it would be vastly expensive, it'd be civil war, we would have no exit strategy. He goes on and on for five minutes. Dick Cheney saying it would be a bad idea. And that's why the first Bush didn't go into Baghdad. Dick Cheney then goes to work for Halliburton. Makes hundreds of millions of dollars, their CEO. Next thing you know, he's back in government and it's a good idea to go into Iraq.”
Cheney’s association with Halliburton has long been fodder for liberals like Michael Moore, but just last month Paul was the winner of a Conservative Political Action Committee straw poll for potential Republican presidential candidates.
Also last month, the Kentucky Senate passed a bill that would allow state candidates to appear on the ballot twice if he or she is running for President or Vice President. Paul is up for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2016. That bill, SB 205, is still tangled up in House committee with the General Assembly set to convene for a final two days of lawmaking next week.
Calls to Sen. Paul's camp were not immediately returned.
