Presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., may have mortally wounded the Patriot Act 1:30 a.m. Saturday — but another possible Republican contender, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, is looking to wound Paul by slamming his opposition to the bill.
In a series of tweets, Christie wrote:
“The Senate’s failure to extend the Patriot Act is a failure of the US gov’t to perform its most important function – protecting its citizens. This is the unfortunate result of misguided ideologues who have no real world experience in fighting terrorism. This dysfunction is what we have come to expect from Washington, DC, but usually it does not have such dangerous and severe consequences.”
Paul ensured that bulk data collection, and the Patriot Act re-authorization, failed to pass during an extraordinary Saturday morning 1:30 a.m. Senate session. Paul’s objections forced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to postpone the vote until May 31, just before the critical legislation is poised to expire.
“It’s not about making a point, it’s about trying to prevent the bulk collection of data,” Paul told reporters just after the session.
Christie’s social media takedown of Paul for blocking the bill didn’t end with just the tweets – on Saturday morning, Christie also posted on Facebook:
The Senate’s failure to extend the Patriot Act is a failure of the US government to perform its most important function – protecting its citizens from harm. This is the unfortunate result of misguided ideologues who have no real world experience in fighting terrorism putting their uninformed beliefs above the safety and security of our citizens. This dysfunction is what we have come to expect from Washington, DC, but usually it does not have such dangerous and severe consequences.
The majority of the comments on Christie’s Facebook post disagreed with the N.J. governor. The most “liked” post on Christie’s page, as of late Saturday evening, by Mike Macula stated: “This is why you will not become president.”
This isn’t the first salvo in the battle of Christie vs. Paul.
In July 2013, New Jersey’s governor accused ophthalmologist Paul of being an “ideologue” who engaged in “esoteric, intellectual debates” on the legitimacy of National Security Agency surveillance that resulted in “dangerous thought.”
Paul responded at the time by saying he would remind Christie:
“I think what’s dangerous in our country is to forget that we have a Bill of Rights, to forget about privacy, to give up on all of our liberty to say, ‘Oh, we’re going to catch terrorism, but you have to live in a police state.’ And it’s really, I think, kind of sad and cheap that he would use the cloak of 9/11 victims and say, ‘Oh, I’m the only one who cares about these victims.’ Hogwash!
It seems their feud is far from over.
