Amid the fury of his Republican colleagues, who were the implicit targets of this self-pitying smear (and annoyed that Paul was raising money off such grandstanding for his presidential campaign), Paul admitted on Fox News that he might have strayed into “hyperbole” and “impugning people’s motives.”

Then again, what if hyperbole, combined with a certain passive-aggressiveness, is not incidental to Paul’s political style but essential? This is hardly the first time the presidential candidate has found himself explaining away an impolitic surfacing of his internal monologue. He’s still trying to live down his 2010 comments implying that the 1964 Civil Rights Act interfered with private property rights, not to mention some recent petulance toward female TV hosts.

At its best, libertarianism is a cheerful, optimistic approach to politics, brimming with confidence about what men and women can achieve when left to their own devices, and, accordingly, with fresh ideas about how to meet social goals through individual initiative and free markets. The Republican Party could well benefit from adding such approaches to its platform on issues from gay rights to law enforcement. Democrats could, too, for that matter.

As is becoming increasingly apparent, however, Paul represents a darker, angrier corner of the libertarian imagination, the part that’s not just concerned by government overreach in pursuit of legitimate objectives — fighting terrorism, say — but positively haunted by spies, war “hawks” and maybe killer drones.