WE NEED A NEW WORD: #RANDSPLAINING

Was this sexism? Or is Rand Paul a jerk toward anyone, male or female, who offers him even a mild challenge in an interview? I really don't know:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) squared off with CNBC host Kelly Evans in a testy interview on Monday, at one point "shushing" the host as she challenged him on a tax proposal.

In discussing Paul's plan for a tax "holiday" for companies bringing back cash from overseas, Evans said that research shows that plans like Paul's cost more money than they save over the long term.

When Evans interjected, Paul raised his finger to his lips and said "shhh."

"Calm down a bit here, Kelly, let me answer the question," he said.

... Asked about his plans, the senator said biased media coverage is one of the obstacles in his path.

"Part of the problem is that you end up having interviews like this where the interview is so slanted and full of distortions that you don't get useful information," Paul said. "I think this is what is bad about TV sometimes. So frankly, I think if we do this again, you need to start out with a little more objectivity going into the interview."

Paul said at one point,

"You have taken an interview and you've made an interview into something where we got no useful information because you were argumentative and you started out with so many presuppositions that were incorrect."

He was arrogant and condescending from the first question (which was about vaccines -- more on that later). I don't know why Paul thinks he was unable to impart any "useful information" -- he did 70% of the talking and then complained when he was talked over once or twice by his interviewer, as if she was silencing him. Here's the whole thing, if you can bear it.



I don't get it. Here's a guy ho's chosen to be a politician, and a controversy-courting one at that -- and he can't handle a mildly combative interviewer without snarling and sneering? And he wants to be president? Does he think everyone's going to be nice to him if he runs or, God help us, wins?

On the subject of vaccines, yes, as you probably know already, he said that "most" should be voluntary, and he had one full-on conspiratorial booga-booga moment:

"I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines," he said.

But his argument for vaccine voluntarism was mostly laissez-faire -- which is crazy. It's the same one-size-fits-all notion that libertarians have about everything: treat vaccination as a marketplace product and the free choices of free people will result in the best of all possible worlds, because markets are perfect that way. Government can act as vaccination's ad agency, but it shouldn't do any more than that.

PAUL: I think public awareness of how good vaccines are for kids and how they are good for public health is a great idea. We just appointed a surgeon general. These are some of the things that are things that we should promote as good for our health. But I don't think there's anything extraordinary about resorting to freedom.

The problem is, of course, that you can't laissez-faire your way to herd immunity, because we need to agree to banish certain diseases through vaccination as a society, or it fails.

I don't think Paul is too stupid to understand this. It's just that, for him, freedom!!! trumps everything else.