Here is part of the deal: Last Friday night, Sen. Paul was attacked by his neighbor, Rene Boucher. Here’s what Politico had to say on Saturday, based on the police warrant issued for Boucher:
‘Boucher’s altercation with Paul left the senator having difficulty breathing as a result of a “possible rib injury” in addition to bleeding from cuts around his mouth. Paul was seeking medical help for his injuries, the warrant said.
‘"Senator Paul was blindsided and the victim of an assault,” Paul spokeswoman Kelsey Cooper said. “The assailant was arrested and it is now a matter for the police. Senator Paul is fine.”
‘Sources in Kentucky said Friday that Paul had been involved in an altercation, but a spokesman for the senator did not return repeated requests for comment on Friday night.’
So no one from Paul’s office said anything on Friday and said on Saturday that Paul was “fine”. Then on Sunday Politico readers learned this:
‘“Senator Paul has five rib fractures including three displaced fractures,” his chief political strategist, Doug Stafford, said in a statement Sunday. “This type of injury is caused by high velocity severe force. It is not clear exactly how soon he will return to work, as the pain is considerable as is the difficulty in getting around, including flying.”’
Uh, how are you “fine” with five rib fractures, three of them “displaced”? And where was Doug on Friday?
Now today we learn it’s six broken ribs plus a “pleural effusion”—liquid in the lungs, which is not terribly surprising, considering that poor Rand clearly got the shit kicked out of him. Politico illustrates this story with a shot of Paul speaking, but he did not deliver this information via a press conference, but via a tweet, which he quite possibly did not send himself.
Meanwhile, Boucher’s attorney, somehow the only person who is willing to talk about what might have caused the shit-kicking, tries to dismiss the whole thing as a “trivial” dispute over something “trivial”—leading to entirely uninformed speculation that Paul was mad about Boucher’s leaves blowing into his yard, or vice versa. Particularly “trivial” is the speculation that Paul was attacked because he is a libertarian or that, being a libertarian, he was “asking for it.”
Here’s some uninformed speculation of my own: 1) This was not a trivial dispute. Paul did something that enraged Boucher, which is why Boucher kicked the shit out of Paul. Paul knows very well why he was attacked, but doesn’t want anyone else to know. 2) All the “particulars” of the story—that an innocent Paul was mowing his lawn when attacked, etc.—are liable to be false. Paul clearly wishes that Boucher had not been arrested, so that he could have put out some sort of “fell down stairs” cover story. 3) Paul’s condition is probably even worse than we’ve been told on the third go-round. The odds are very good that he won’t be coming back to Washington soon. 4) For whatever reason, “the media” don’t want to notice that Paul is clearly hiding something—clearly hiding a lot. The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake notes that the “mystery” is growing rather than shrinking, but somehow doesn’t note that the cause of the mystery is Paul’s silence.
