Before I get flamed for saying Rand should be attacked, hear me out. In fact, don't just hear me out. Go to Netflicks and watch the movie The Hiding Place. It's a story about a family, the Ten Booms, that hid Jews during the holocaust.
One of the things the Ten Booms had to do was to get enough ration cards to buy extra food for the people hiding out at their house. Having extra ration cards, even without proof of anything else, could get you sent to a concentration camp. They had friends who distributed rations cards and worked out a deal to get more. But there was a catch. To keep the Nazis from getting suspicious, they had to beat up their own friends to make it look like a robbery.
Back in 2010, when it became apparent to me that Rand was operating in "stealth mode" (and yes I'm convinced that's what he's doing), I thought "would the ruse work if all liberty minded people rallied around Rand with the same level of blind devotion with which they rallied around Ron?" And I quickly came to the "no" conclusion.
Now, I admit I could be wrong about Rand. He could be co-opted and power hungry. He could simply be being misled. In either of those cases it's important for liberty minded folk to hold his feet to the fire in a way liberals did not hold Obama's feet to the fire.
Further, it's possible, even likely, that the Justin Raimondo's of the world aren't attacking Rand in order to help him "keep his cover" but rather because they just hate the teocon-like stuff he sometimes says and the endorsement of Romney. But from a strategic point of view....it doesn't matter. The Becks of the world will say "Rand is being attacked by people who attack me! The enemy of my enemy is my friend! I must come to his defense!" And I suspect Beck is playing a role too...but in order to successfully play a role you must.....play the role.
Rand took some flack from libertarians for going with the neo/teocons and putting a hold on Hagel. Now he's taking flack from some neo/teocons, and paleocons who want to court them, for voting to confirm Hagel. In 2016 none of that will matter. But in the dustup he had Beck "riding to his rescue" and now he has (some) libertarians who were doubting him feeling at least a little better. When Raimondo does what he feels he has to do (and what is ultimately in Rand's political best interest) it won't have as much sting as it might have had before. But it will continue to help Rand with the teocons. By 2016 (or before) people will have largely forgotten about the Hagel vote. (I sincerely doubt this will resonate like the Romney endorsement did.) Your average GOP voter probably still has no idea who Hagel is. Yes some "hardcore tecon freerepers" will remember, but there are more of us than there are of them.
All in all this was a good day for Rand Paul.
I put the disclaimer in to avoid a thread derail. Seems like one person, due to his hatred of anyone who doesn't hate MLK and buy into his JBS conspiracy theories on the subject, tried to derail it anyway. 
