[Ben Ficklin]

This doesn't have anything to do with liberals or democrats. It is about a major battle breaking out in the GOP between Rand Paul and the NeoCons.

Scroll back up and look at the second sentence in the ABC article. It says the article attacking Paul's aide Hunter appeared in the Washington Free Beacon, which is a NeoCon publication. There was also a secondary article in the National Review.

The problem began with Paul opposing intervening in Syria and trying to sway public opinion against that. The NeoCons are strong and outspoken supporters of a Syria intervention.

Then after the NSA story broke, Paul has been very critical of NSA. And the NeoCons are strong supporters of NSA eavesdropping.

So the NeoCons published the article in the Beacon attacking Hunter as a way of undermining Rand Paul. This is not much different from the NeoCons' attacks on Ron Paul.

Then Rand Paul retaliated by mocking or attacking NeoCon Liz Cheney for running in Wyoming rather than Virginia.

[Mozilla]

Actually the big battle is between the conservative tea party types like Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Allen West and Mike Lee vs. more paleo-libertarian tea party types like Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, Bob Barr, Ron Paul, and Wayne Allyn Root.

There are clear fundamental differences.

[Dead Corpse]

And out come the usual suspects against Rand.

Agreed. Excellent analysis...