(CNN) -- Once upon a time, Ronald Reagan said, "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." Today, it's not only socially acceptable to attack your conservative peers, but it has actually become part of campaign strategy. Identify someone who represents a minority view within the GOP, tear him or her to shreds and hope that it establishes you as a voice of the mainstream. It's all very survival of the fittest, very Ayn Rand. But is Gov. Rick Perry of Texas really fitter than Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky? Certainly not intellectually. On Friday, Perry wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post attacking the "isolationism" of Paul and the libertarian right. He argued it overlooks the specific threat posed by ISIS in Iraq, a group that is "well-trained, technologically sophisticated and adept at recruitment, with thousands of people with European passports fighting on its side, as well as some Americans."
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Timothy Stanley: Rick Perry, Rand Paul spar in op-eds, break Reagan's no-attack rule
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He says Perry off-base in attack on Paul as isolationist with a foreign policy like Obama's
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Stanley: Perry touts Reagan's approach, but Reagan tended to avoid confrontation
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Stanley: Paul, Perry not likely GOP's 2016 candidate; dust-up only makes GOP look fractured
On the whole, Reagan was in favor of political confrontation with superpowers or wars by proxy but rarely had the stomach for putting @placeholder boots on the ground.