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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul doesn't exactly see eye to eye with President Obama on the use of military force against the Islamic State group.

In politics, its been said, timing is everything. It seems that Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, has learned the lesson well.

Todays Big Read comes from Paul, who regularly shows up on the short list of 2016 GOP presidential contenders. The Daily Beast has posted a scathing essay by Paul, declaring that President Barack Obamas decision to use military force against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria violates the 1973 War Powers Act. Its not the first time Paul, a libertarian and tea party darling, has gone to the rhetorical mat (or hit the Senate debate floor) with the White House over the use of force overseas.

[READ: Iran's Shadow War in Iraq]

That Paul chose to do so on Veterans Day, just days after the president sent 1,500 more troops to the region as military advisers - a move that raises the spectre of President Lyndon Johnsons famous escalation of the Vietnam War - and referenced Vietnam-era anti-war legislation gives Paul extra style points. The capper, however, comes when he references Secretary of State John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who won fame, and launched his political career testifying against the war but now must defend the White House over what Paul argues is the very same thing:

When I asked him at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing how on Gods green Earth a resolution to use force against the perpetrators of 9/11 in Afghanistan could be construed to apply to the Islamic State in Iraq in 2014, he replied that it didnt matter. The president could justify basically any war making as an Article II power.

Though hes constantly ranked with the likes of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and fellow Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas as a Republican presidential candidate, Paul has a few uphill battles. Hes polling at around 3 percent nationally, and in head-to-head comparisons with Hillary Clinton, the presumed but undeclared Democratic contender, Paul falls by double-digits.

Yet at a time when the post-9/11 combat veterans we purportedly honor each struggle with higher-than-average rates of joblessness, suicide, mental health and substance abuse problems, homelessness and domestic violence - and just 0.5 percent of the nations population even volunteers to serve, compared to 12 percent during World War II - Pauls larger point resonates.

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Rand Paul Calls Out Obama Over ISIL War