FEAR OF A RAND-PAUL-INFLUENCED FOREIGN POLICY.

Josh Rogin, writing at the Washington Post, contemplates the supposedly frightening shadow of Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) hovering over some of President Donald Trump’s recent foreign policy decisions. Rogin’s piece adds to some unsourced musings from Beltway types that the most influential adviser to Trump on foreign policy right now is not anyone on his staff or a member of the Pentagon brass, but the Kentucky senator known for his skepticism about endless foreign adventuring.

Rogin thinks it fair to say that Paul, via informal communication with golfing buddy Trump, “is quietly steering U.S. foreign policy in a new direction.” Among the public evidence for this is Trump tweet-quoting Paul after announcing his intention to pull U.S. troops from Syria on how “[it]t should not be the job of America to replace regimes around the world.”

Paul’s influence is bad, Rogin maintains, because “Trump may be taking Paul’s word over that of his own advisers. Moreover, Paul has a history of pushing false claims and theories.”

The implication, against all evidence, is that government foreign policy experts somehow do not “push…false claims and theories,” even though their beliefs about such matters as Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, and the supposedly positive aftereffects of toppling Middle Eastern dictators such as Saddam and Libyan Colonel Muammar Gadafi, have been disastrously wrong.

“False claims and theories.” Rich, coming from the Washington Post.