Sen. Rand Paul gave the GOP weekly address this weekend, full of completely ridiculous rhetoric about the liberal war against everything decent and good about America.

In the middle of his “War! War! War!” speech, this little excerpt caught our ear:

As the president campaigns against those who have succeeded, as the president vilifies those who employ millions of workers, he condemns the very system that made America great.

Today there’s a war going on for the heart and soul of America. A war between those who believe in the American Dream and those who cannot grasp what makes America great.

There’s a war going on between those who would apologize for America’s success, those who would bow down and apologize for capitalism, and profit, and America’s exceptional history and those who would defend America as the greatest experiment in freedom and prosperity ever known.

There’s a battle going on between those who respect the Constitution and those who would scrap it for the South African Constitution.

So President Obama doesn’t understand America? Check.

President Obama bows down and apologizes for America to foreign leaders? Check.

And yes, they want to “scrap” our constitution for one from Africa.

Hello, obscene dog whistle.

While this South African line is old and pathetic, the Romney campaign hasn’t gone down that road… yet, at least.

No, for the time being, Mitt Romney would rather call him “foreign,” make “jokes” about how he doesn’t have any birth certificate “controversy,” and lie about Obama shoring up his “base” by trying to take away work requirements for welfare recipients.

What a dignified way to win the White House.

Here’s Chris Matthews from MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” this morning, expressing to RNC Chariman Reince Priebus his, uh, displeasure with this tactic.

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P.S. — Rand Paul also threw down this line in his speech:

The question is now as important as it was then: Will you be ‘sunshine patriots’ shrinking and gone when the going gets tough or will you stand, shoulder to shoulder to defend the Republic our forefathers fought so diligently to leave us?

We just thought it was worth noting that time two years ago when Rand’s father called his son a “Sunshine Patriot” for succumbing tothe hatred and bigotry of the backlash against the mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero in New York City:

This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

We now have an epidemic of “sunshine patriots” on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended.

Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored.

Demagoguery, indeed. Maybe Rand just doesn’t understand or respect what America is all about.