Knowing you guys as I do, it’s the attack on Maverick that you really want to see. Skip to 41:00 or so. He doesn’t mention him by name, of course, but I think we’re all on the same page when we hear the term “moss-covered.” Damn:

In a possible dig at John McCain, he alluded to a falsehood he’s brought up before: that the Arizona senator was cozy with future ISIS members.

“Intervention created this chaos,” he said. “To those who wish unlimited intervention and boots on the ground everywhere, remember the smiling poses of politicians pontificating about so-called freedom fighters and heroes in Libya, in Syria and in Iraq. Unaware that the so-called freedom fighters may well have been allied with kidnappers and are killers and jihadists.”

Most of the 41 minutes that precede that are spent on a largely accurate critique of O’s goofy, possibly disingenuous plan to arm the Syrian rebels, although he veers off course a few times to take shots at Democratic nominees future and past (“I would like President Obama to re-read the speeches of candidate Obama,” he says of O’s usurpation of Congress’s war powers). I give him credit for largely sticking to his guns here: At a moment when his party’s trending pro-interventionist, this is a vehemently anti-interventionist speech, particularly towards the end. Iraq, Libya, Syria: Getting involved in other people’s fights almost always makes our problems worse, he intones — before, er, endorsing intervention against ISIS in Iraq. Ah well. I’m viewing this speech mostly as a consolation prize for the libertarian commentariat, which understands that he’s probably going to have to lurch a bit further towards the hawks to stay competitive next year. He may regretfully sell them out on foreign policy to win votes, but he can at least give their criticisms of hawks a showcase on the Senate floor.

As I write this, I’m hearing that McCain and his sidekick Lindsey are on the Senate floor delivering some sort of rebuttal. Stay tuned.