“It was one of the premier strategic surprises of the 2011–2012 Republican presidential primary: the Romney-Paul alliance. Rep. Ron Paul’s final presidential campaign, better-funded than anything he’d run before, was always geared toward maximizing the number of delegates he could win in a Romney-dominated race. The détente between the two campaigns turned Paul into an attack dog, often barking at Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, but saving his most intense material for Rick Perry. …

At the time I was struck by how breezy and easy the Pauls found it to disparage Perry. He was a joke to them. It had been only a year since he beat a Paul supporter and organizer, Debra Medina, in his final gubernatorial primary, and he’d done so after conservative media portrayed her as a 9/11 truther. (She had “questions.”) Paul had felt smeared by the same attack in 2008. Revenge was sweet.

This was the context for a weekend battle between Perry and Paul—a battle Perry chose. After earning a week of national media attention for his warnings about the child refugee crisis on the Mexican border, Perry pivoted and published a Washington Post column about Iraq. It was, said Perry, “disheartening to hear fellow Republicans, such as Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), suggest that our nation should ignore what’s happening in Iraq.”

“* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

*Read more here from David Weigel / Slate:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/07/14/the_five_snappiest_insults_in_rand_paul_s_response_to_rick_perry_and_some.html