Question: Here is a news article: After yesterday's open hearing on the case for airstrikes in Syria, Sen. Rand Paul gave a group of reporters 18 minutes to quiz him on his preferred course of action. His fear, stated simply: Anything we do is likely to make the region messier, so why do anything? 
  
  
  
 "Is it more or less likely if the region will be more or less stable if we have this attack?" he asked, after I asked him whether he worried about the country losing clout if Congress prevented an airstrike. "Same thing for Israel—is it more or less likely that Israel will be attacked? I think there are valid arguments for saying the region will be more unstable if we get a superpower involved in a civil war, more unstable for Israel if we get a superpower involved and the Syrians feel like they have to show Israel something, or Iran gets involved. Russia feels like they're losing face and they need to get more involved." Nobody knew, he said. "It's all conjecture." 
  
  
  
 What did we know? For starters, we knew that there were no "different restrictions on the president, in the Constitution, [regarding] whether it's a little war." The idea that strikes on Syria would be limited to just that—strikes, no larger war—was folly. "A lot of people made the mistake of saying that because it's a small war, or because we're only using certain types of missiles, we're not going to call it a war. … Vietnam was that way, Iraq was that way to a certain extent." And how would it end? "I think it's almost inevitable there'll be a second war if Assad falls." 
  
  
  
 Paul repeated an argument he's deployed on a series of TV shows. Assad, for all his faults, is not prosecuting Christians. "The one thing you might say if you wanted to say something good [about him] is that there was some civility there for a generation or more," said Paul. Compare that with Egypt after the temporary fall of its military-backed dictatorship. "We may well be degrading Assad and allowing radical Islamists to take over the country." 
  
  
  
 A Kentucky reporter tried to bring Paul down from theory by saying that Syrian-Americans in his state were worried about the fates of their distant relatives. What would Paul say to them? 
  
  
  
 "I wish I had a good answer," he said. "I've talked to a lot of Syrian Christians who are now in the United States. Some of them still have family over there. Their biggest concern is Islamic rebels taking over—what will happen to Christians? They were allowed to have their own religion. You see what happens when the radical Islamists take over, the Muslim Brotherhood raging through Coptic neighborhoods in Egypt. If I had a way to wave a magic wand, I would, but it's chaos over there." 
  
  
  
 He didn't need a wand, anyway; his position was popular. "I was in Kentucky for a month," he said, "and I went to 40 cities. I didn't meet one person who was for going into Syria. When I told them I was opposed to it, I got standing ovations." Did this mean that Paul was ready to filibuster a resolution? "I can't imagine that we won't require 60 votes off this. Whether there's an actual standing filibuster, I need to check my shoes and hold my water." ||||| Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images 
  
 Reporters who joined a conference call with Rand Paul yesterday asked him, twice, whether he'd filibuster a resolution to authorize force in Syria. He only really answered the second time, saying, "I can't imagine that we won't require 60 votes off this." That was a little controversial—Roll Call's Niels Lesniewski has pointed out that a war resolution is by definition pending business, and skips the usual filibuster sand traps. But Paul said he was looking into the possibly, and added that "whether there's an actual standing filibuster, I need to check my shoes and hold my water." 
  
  
  
 David Weigel David Weigel is a Slate political reporter. You can reach him at daveweigel@gmail.com, or tweet at him @daveweigel. 
  
 Around 18 hours later, the New York Times got a Paul aide to "confirm" what he'd basically said already. 
  
  
  
 For the Senate to move quickly, the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, would need unanimous consent at least to bring the authorization of force to the Senate floor. 
  
 That is not likely to happen. Moira Bagley, a spokeswoman for Mr. Paul, said he would demand a 60-vote threshold to move forward. 
  
 Pretty clear, no? But then came this exchange in the Foreign Relations committee mark-up. 
  
 Pressed about the reports by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee business meeting, Paul said: "That would be a misinterpretation from the media." 
  
 It really isn't! Paul has raised the possibility of demanding a supermajority for a war resolution, and of filibustering it—at least with a talking filibuster—for as long as he can hold his bladder. 
  
 Why did Paul back off for a little while? At the time, he was trying to get the committee to approve his resolution: 
  
 It is the sense of the Senate that the President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. ||||| The seed for Wide00014 was: 
  
 - Slash pages from every domain on the web: 
  
  
  
  
  
 -- a ranking of all URLs that have more than one incoming inter-domain link (rank was determined by number of incoming links using Wide00012 inter domain links) 
  
  
  
 -- up to a maximum of 100 most highly ranked URLs per domain 
  
 - Top ranked pages (up to a max of 100) from every linked-to domain using the Wide00012 inter-domain navigational link graph ||||| AP 
  
 Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday reversed his earlier comments suggesting he would filibuster a resolution authorizing military strikes in Syria. 
  
 "That would be a misinterpretation from the media," he said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, in response to a question from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) 
  
 He added: "What's not open to interpretation would be an event like now where we are discussing now for weeks at a time whether Congress should have to give the authorization," signaling that he wants Congress to vote on a potential strike quickly. 
  
 Paul had left the door open to a filibuster on an earlier conference call with reporters. "I can’t imagine that we won’t require 60 votes on this,” he said Tuesday. “Whether there’s an actual standing filibuster — I’ve got to check my shoes and check my ability to hold my water. And we will see. I haven’t made a decision on that." 
  
 Paul famously filibustered the nomination of CIA Director John Brennan for 13 hours in a protest over President Barack Obama's civil liberties policies. He is an outspoken opponent of American involvement in Syria. 
  
 Sabrina Siddiqui contributed reporting. |||||
A summary of this is?
Answer: – Rand Paul wants the US to steer clear of Syria, but he says he's not planning any filibusters to make that happen, reports the Huffington Post. Paul today blamed reports to the contrary on a "misrepresentation from the media." Here's the quote from yesterday, via the Washington Post: “I can't imagine that we won't require 60 votes on this. Whether there’s an actual standing filibuster—I’ve got to check my shoes and check my ability to hold my water. And we will see. I haven’t made a decision on that.” After that, the New York Times quoted an aide saying that Paul would indeed filibuster. That has changed now, apparently. Slate has more on Paul's views: Essentially, he thinks that any US intervention would only make things worse—for the US, for Syrians, for Israel, for the entire region. "I think it's almost inevitable there'll be a second war if Assad falls," he says, adding that it might well result in "radical Islamists" taking over. Paul also tried to use President Obama's own words against him, notes Mediaite: In a proposed resolution, he quoted the then-senator warning the Bush camp not to strike Iran in 2007: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” Paul's resolution failed today.