By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | March 7th, 2013 at 04:30 AM 

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) did a brilliant thing in his filibuster of Obama’s appointment of John Brennan to head the CIA.  The filibuster was staged in order to bring attention to the fact that Obama feels he has the authority to employ drone strikes in the United States to kill American Citizens without first charging, arresting, indicting, and trying the American citizen.  No other US President has ever felt they had the authority to use air strikes in the United States to kill Americans without warning, without first arresting them and without providing them with the due process accorded all US Citizens by the US Constitution. 
By keeping the filibuster going through prime time, Senator Paul forced ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and the left of center liberal media establishment—the chief sources of news for low information voters — to cover the issue.
During his filibuster, Senator Paul had the support from other senators to provide him with the time to rest his voice. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) came down to the well of the Senate for a few hours to give Senator Paul a break by reading tweets in support of Senator Paul. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) came in to provide support as well. Senator Mark Kirk, Cdr-USNR (R-IL), an elected Combat Veteran For Congress, who returned to the Senate after recovering from a very bad stroke, also went down to the well of the Senate to support Senator Paul.  Even Democratic Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) joined in the filibuster.    
While the Filibuster continued thru the early evening, Senator John McCain, Capt –USN, USNA ’58 (R-AZ), an elected Combat Veteran For Congress, and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) were having dinner with Obama and 10 other Republican Senators at the posh Jefferson Hotel, just blocks from the White House, in an attempt to open lines of communications between the GOP and Obama.