Colbert takes on Rand Paul's Syria incoherence and 'slumbering wombat' hairstyle

Wednesday night on "The Colbert Report," host Stephen Colbert skewered 2016 presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)'s "all over the place" approach to how to handle the situation in Syria, as well as the gelled snarl of curls on top of the senator's head, which Colbert likened to a "slumbering wombat" that could "strike at any time."

After Pres. Barack Obama laid out the case once again for military intervention in Syria Tuesday night, Paul made his own rebuttal speech, then made the rounds of the cable news shows, seeming to argue multiple cases at once for and against attacking the Assad regime.

"Now, Paul has been opposed to military action from the beginning," said Colbert, "so he was thrilled with Russia's diplomatic proposal."

Colbert was being sarcastic, because in the interview clips he played, Paul was saying over and over that he doesn't "know whether to trust the Russian proposal or not."

"Right," said Colbert, "you can't always trust. For instance, that thing on your head. You assure us that it's hair, but I have yet to be convinced it's not a slumbering wombat, ready to strike at any time."

Colbert went on to say that he agrees with Paul, killing civilians is pretty bad, but it's not THAT bad, therefore "we shouldn't do anything."

Except in another interview on another network, Paul called the use of chemical weapons "a violation of every norm" and that "Assad should be accountable."

"So, I agree with Rand Paul," said Colbert, "the second Rand Paul. We must hold them accountable using the president's plan of limited strikes to send a message."

But then Colbert played a segment of Paul's rebuttal speech which said that limited military strikes are all but guaranteed to be ineffective. Assad, he said, "deserves death" for using sarin gas on his own people.

"Agreed!" Colbert said. "Death it is! Regime change! Shock and awe! Bombs away!"

Then he played a clip from another interview in which Paul said, "I think if we bomb Assad, it will become more likely that the country will become more unstable," and another clip in which the freshman senator direly warned of "just about any bad outcome" you can imagine if we do bomb Syria.

"Okay, I was wrong. This is the Rand Paul I agree with," said Colbert.

"So, just to recap," he concluded, "Rand Paul says no diplomacy, but we can't do nothing, but no to the president's plan and no to regime change."

Watch the video, embedded below via Comedy Central: