There’s nothing unusual about a sitting senator writing a book. About a third of the current Senate includes published authors, who’ve written books on policy, fiction, history, and even children’s literature.
But has there ever been a senator quite as prolific as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)? In 2011, his first year in elected office, Paul authored, The Tea Party Goes to Washington. A year later, the Republican wrote an updated version of the book called, Not Politics As Usual, and then also released, Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused, and Imprisoned by the Feds.
This week, Paul released his latest book, Taking a Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America, and in the fall, the senator’s publisher said yet another Paul book, Our Presidents & Their Prayers: Proclamations of Faith by America’s Leaders, will hit bookshelves.
It’s astounding, isn’t it? Rand Paul has time to be a U.S. senator, tend to constituent needs, attend committee hearings, participate in debates, maintain a high public profile, appear in media, travel, prepare a presidential campaign, and still churn out one book after another. A cynic might question whether the Kentucky lawmaker is actually writing any of them.
Of course, as BuzzFeed noticed, just because the Republican is releasing books doesn’t mean the books tell the truth.
The publisher behind Rand Paul’s new book will update future editions to correct a mistake: The book misstates the number of people killed in the Benghazi attack. […]“I believe judgment day for Benghazi is also at hand,” writes Paul. “When the secretary of state answers a question concerning the murders of six Americans, including an American ambassador, by saying, ‘What difference, at this point, does it make?’ I think that’s a pretty clear indication that it’s time for that person to go.”
This is actually two glaring errors at once. As Paul — or his possible ghost writer — should know, four Americans were murdered in Libya. What’s more, Hillary Clinton did not say, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” in reference to the slayings.
Wait, it gets worse.
BuzzFeed also found that Paul’s book relies on Benghazi claims that have been “disputed or later found to be unsubstantiated” by the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee.
A Vox.com report found that Paul’s new book “takes liberty with the truth,” and is so eager to paint a partisan portrait of Benghazi that it “omits exonerating evidence, repeats claims that have been contradicted by investigators and fails to place the bulk of the blame for the attacks where it belongs: On the terrorists.”
And Correct the Record published its own fact-check yesterday, flagging a series of bogus claims included in Paul’s latest book.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."