Tulsi Gabbard delights in provocation

THERE IS SOMETHING enigmatic and head-turning about Tulsi Gabbard. It is not just a matter of first impressions: her silver-striped hair (reminiscent of Rogue, a character from “X-Men”); intense eye contact; go-to greeting—“Aloha”—delivered in a husky voice. It is also her convictions. Some are batty enough to make a right-thinking person squirm. Ms Gabbard can sound cheerily woo-woo (“There is no force more powerful than love”) or ominously so (“The forces of darkness are filled with power and money”). It is hard to know precisely what to make of her, except that she dislikes foreign wars and delights in confounding expectations. So much so that on occasion she sounds like a conspiracy theorist. She prefers the term “free-thinker”.