Clay Fight!
I will grant that there’s a certain courage in a Kentucky Senator lauding Cassius Marcellus Clay over Henry Clay:
“As long as I sit at Henry Clay’s desk, I will remember his lifelong desire to forge agreement, but I will also keep close to my heart the principled stand of his cousin Cassius who refused to forsake the life of any human simply to find agreement,” Paul said.
Paul criticized one of the most famous Kentucky politicians, Henry Clay, who at one point occupied Paul’s chosen desk in the Senate. Instead of emulating the Kentucky senator known as the “great compromiser,” Paul praised his cousin, abolitionist Cassius Clay, who was attacked politically and physically for sticking to his principles.
“Today we have no issues that approach moral equivalency with the issue of slavery. Yet we do face a fiscal nightmare and potentially a debt crisis,” said Paul. “Is the answer to compromise? Should we compromise by raising taxes and cutting spending as the Debt Commission proposes? Is that the compromise that will save us from financial ruin?”
Also grudging kudos for not embracing the slavery-abortion metaphor. It would be nice if Paul provided an opening for doing something like replacing the statue of the reprehensible John C. Breckinridge at the old Lexington courthouse and replacing it with Cassius Clay. I plan to do a bit more blogging later on Paul’s foreign and defense policy statements, which are somewhat interesting.
