Paul’s sharp Valentine to Hillary Clinton

by Niall Stanage - 02/14/15 7:36 PM ET

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sent Hillary Clinton a distinctly double-edged Valentine’s Day gift Saturday when he tweeted out a mock Pinterest page jabbing at the former secretary of State.

Paul’s tweet made clear he was kidding.

If Hillary Clinton set up a Pinterest for Valentine’s Day, we can only imagine it might look like this>>>https://t.co/nNfAynLJxE

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) February 14, 2015

However, some of the Pinterest jokes were a little close to the bone.

One, for instance, from a board ostensibly showing “Inspirational Quotes,” has an image of a gleeful Clinton, a large red heart and the words, “I’ve Benghazing at you!”

Another, from the same board, includes a photo of Clinton, a quote sometimes attributed to the real Clinton (“There are no other people’s children”) and the fake-Clinton caption, “Because children belong to the government. #ForTheChildren.”

Other boards and images include titles such as “White House remodel” in reference to Clinton’s assumed aspiration to return as president to the building where she lived as first lady; and “Should, Woulda, Coulda,” which mostly features images of Clinton campaigning with Democrats who failed to win their Senate races last November.

Paul has mined that final seam before. In the immediate wake of the election, Paul also took to social media — on that occasion, his Facebook page — and referred to the defeated Democrats with the hashtag #HillarysLosers

It is widely assumed that both Paul and Clinton will run for the presidency in 2016, so these may be just the first shots in a social media war.

At time of writing, no fire had been returned from Clinton’s official Twitter account.