New York Times campaign reporter Jeremy Peters on Tuesday lent libertarian-Republican Sen. Rand Paul some slight, cynical support toward his attempt to repeal the Patriot Act in "Paul Tries to Stake Territory as Lone Candidate Who'd Guard Civil Liberties." But Peters maintained his personal hostility toward both the GOP, which "demands fealty to hawkish dogma on national security and defense," and the candidate himself, who "can't stop swearing" and whose "mouth gets him in trouble." (VP Joe Biden did not comment.)
Senator Rand Paul can’t stop swearing.
“What the hell is a Republican doing in San Francisco?” he blared to a crowd of 150 Bay Area tech entrepreneurs intrigued enough to come hear him speak on Saturday.
And Peters, as is his habit, can't resist getting snarky in his coverage of the Kentucky senator. On April 9 Peters responded to Paul throwing the media's pro-abortion, anti-Republican bias back at them by wondering if Paul was "just a control freak."
On Tuesday Peters wrote:
As Congress and the courts try to resolve the difficult question of how far the federal government may go in collecting data on citizens’ private communications, Mr. Paul has become the most unabashed and unambiguous opponent of renewing those far-reaching powers of any presidential candidate.
It wouldn't be a Peters' story without a condescending sentence reducing Republicans to mindless ideologues.
Yet as Congress debates extending the Patriot Act beyond its June 1 expiration, Mr. Paul, of Kentucky, is determined to seize the spotlight and test whether a candidate so vocal about safeguarding civil liberties can succeed in a party that increasingly demands fealty to hawkish dogma on national security and defense.
Peters similarly mischaracterized the GOP as anti-science in a February front-page diatribe about alleged conservative resistance to childhood vaccinations (when it's actually far more an issue with the anti-science left).
A spirited legislative battle on government surveillance could also energize Mr. Paul’s core of libertarian supporters, who have detected a reticence lately in his attitude toward the ideals that helped fuel his political rise. He signed onto a confrontational letter that his Senate colleagues sent to Iran’s leaders, warning against cutting a deal with President Obama over their nuclear program. He also appeared to mock Baltimore protesters after the death of Freddie Gray, despite having advocated in the past for a crackdown on the use of excessive force by the police.
Mr. Paul acknowledges that sometimes his mouth gets him in trouble. But he said no one should have any reason to doubt his beliefs. “I talk too much,” he said. “I will say things that aren’t perfect. You don’t get this from Hillary Clinton because she won’t talk to you.”
....
Polls show that Republicans generally approve of the bulk records collection program; many even want it strengthened. A New York Times poll in September found that 44 percent of Republicans believed the program was “about right,” while 26 percent said that it did not go far enough. Just 23 percent said it went too far.
Peters is being rather vague here. I can't locate those figures or a specific question about collecting bulk records anywhere in the poll that Peters linked to in the above paragraph. Question 35a of that September 2014 poll seems closest to the mark: "Overall, in its efforts to fight terrorism, do you think the U.S. government has gone too far in restricting people's civil liberties, or has it not gone far enough, or has the balance been about right?" Yet neither that question or the one in CBS's version (the unacknowledged cosponsor of the poll) broke the findings down into GOP or Democrat, at least not publically.
But previous results from other polls, including this 2013 one from CBS alone, indicated Republicans are often more supportive than Democrats of what the Times calls civil liberties: "Asked if the government has gone too far in infringing on people's privacy in its efforts to fight terrorism, 46 percent think the balance is about right, but 36 percent say the government has gone too far. Just 13 percent think the government hasn't gone far enough. Republicans are more likely (42 percent) than Democrats (26 percent) to say the government has gone too far."
