During his talkathon, Paul had suggested the possibility that the government would have used hellfire missiles against anti-war activist Jane Fonda or an American sitting at a cafe. During the height of the Vietnam War, Fonda traveled to North Vietnam and was widely criticized by some in the U.S. for her appearances there.
McCain derided that notion of an attack against the actress and argued that Paul was unnecessarily making Americans fear that their government poses a danger.
"To somehow allege or infer that the president of the United States is going to kill somebody like Jane Fonda or somebody who disagrees with the policies is a stretch of imagination which is, frankly, ridiculous," McCain said.
McCain found himself in the odd position of defending Fonda's constitutional rights over her July 1972 trip to Hanoi that earned her the derogatory nickname "Hanoi Jane."
"I must say that the use of Jane Fonda's name does evoke certain memories with me, and I must say that she is not my favorite American, but I also believe that, as odious as it was, Ms. Fonda acted within her constitutional rights," said McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 5½ years. "And to somehow say that someone who disagrees with American policy and even may demonstrate against it is somehow a member of an organization which makes that individual an enemy combatant is simply false. It is simply false."
Graham expressed incredulity that Republicans would criticize Obama on a policy that Republican President George W. Bush enforced in the terror war.
"People are astonished that President Obama is doing many of the things that President Bush did," Graham said. "I'm not astonished. I congratulate him for having the good judgment to understand we're at war. And to my party, I'm a bit disappointed that you no longer apparently think we're at war."
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Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Richard Lardner and David Espo contributed to this report.
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