Posted on 02/08/2016 12:40:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Via the Daily Rushbo, that’s the second time in a week that Rush has given Rubio a vote of confidence at a moment when the rest of the field (Ted Cruz very much included) is desperate to blow him up. That feels strange after so many months of Limbaugh mainstreaming Trump on the right — as I said in last week’s post, it’s hard to be pro-Trump and pro-Rubio — but it makes sense strategically. If Rubio collapses, conservatives are left with Cruz and … that’s pretty much it, given that the other remaining survivors in the field are apt to be Trump, Kasich, and/or Bush. Unless you want to (shudder) take a second look at Jeb, you need Rubio in there in case Cruz hits a wall after the SEC primary. For all his faults, from amnesty to hyper-interventionism to his inability to stray off-script even when he’s being mocked for staying relentlessly on script, Rubio would still be more conservative as president than the rest of his center-right competition. Rush is simply playing the long game here by declining to wreck him for his debate stumble.
As for the substance of Rubio’s answer, I wouldn’t go as far in claiming that “Obama knows what he’s doing.” Domestically, that’s true: ObamaCare wasn’t an accident. It’s true in some foreign policy matters too, like the Iran deal. O succeeded there in his goal of neutralizing the threat, if you define “the threat” as “American hawks willing to risk war with Iran to stop their nuclear program.” He took war off the table for the foreseeable future, even at the price of legitimizing uranium enrichment by Iran in 15 years’ time. He knew what he was doing. I’ll never buy that he knew what he was doing in Libya and Syria, though. There’s no strategic benefit to setting red lines for Assad on WMD and vowing that Assad must go and then failing to follow through on either of those threats later. It’s pure amateurism, a bluff with nothing behind it, and emblematic of Obama’s short-sighted approach in Syria of doing just enough so that hawks can’t claim he’s doing absolutely nothing while doing little enough that doves can’t claim we’re on our way to Vietnam 3.0. Rubio, I’m sure, does have some concrete ideas about what the commander-in-chief should be doing in Syria. Whether a McCain-ish ramping up of America’s presence in the Syrian maelstrom would be better than Obama’s “strategy du jour” approach, I leave for you to decide.
Anyway. It’s fine to say, as Rush and Andy McCarthy do, that Rubio was right on the merits of his “Obama knows what he’s doing” talking point. The problem, as McCarthy notes, was Rubio’s insistence on mindlessly repeating the point even while being mocked for mindless repetition, as though he couldn’t delve into the substance of it. The point of Christie’s jab was that a freshman senator is too inexperienced to successfully advance his agenda as president, which is really stupid considering that Obama’s actually done it. He got the stimulus through; he got ObamaCare through; he made a dubious deal with Iran and proclaimed a dubious mass amnesty via executive action. Claiming at this point that young legislators can’t move the ball for their team as president is like claiming that it’s scientifically impossible that the sky is blue. Just look up! But rather than say that, Rubio stuck to his script, and as Ace noted yesterday, once you’ve seen the 25-second speech exposed it’s hard not to see it in everything Rubio says. That’s unfair insofar as all of the candidates are giving canned speeches — Christie’s famous townhall passage on drug addiction is one he’s repeated many times — but Rubio’s dependence on it under fire, when he was practically being dared to say something spontaneous, created a filter through which he’ll be viewed going forward. Not fatal, I think, but it’s a problem now.
One more thing. Rush praises Rubio (and Cruz) here for correctly identifying that Obama has succeeded in moving his agenda whereas so much of the rest of the party, most notably Trump, dismiss Obama’s problem as incompetence and inexperience. Rush’s theory for that is that the establishmentarians have to pretend that Obama screwed up because they’re complicit in his successes. They’ve worked with him, after all. Okay, but … so has Rubio, first and foremost on the Obama-friendly Gang of Eight bill and to a lesser extent in lending rhetorical support for the disastrous intervention in Libya. (McCarthy notes both of those in his piece.) If Rubio knew all along that Obama had bad intentions with his policies, why did he cooperate with him on anything, let alone major initiatives? And why are we knocking Trump for believing that Obama’s an incompetent when the whole premise of his candidacy rests on that assumption? This goes back to what Rush said a few weeks ago about how Trump, in his own way, is making the case for smaller government by relentlessly attacking government as incompetent. Not so. Trump’s problem with government is that it’s run by morons, not that it’s too big and therefore destined to behave inefficiently. Obama’s just the head moron. Replace him with Trump and yuge improvements will be seen. If we’re going to boost Trump, let’s at least be clear-eyed about his message is.
I agree with Rush on Rubio’s answer about Obama being right, what I don’t agree with is his assertion that Rubio is a true conservative. Any politician who is for rewarding alien lawbreakers with amnesty is no conservative in my book.
All of that means absolutely nothing because as soon as he was elected he turned his back on the people who elected him and embraced Charles Shumer and the rest of the Gang of Eight. He is absolutely untrustworthy. He's an empty suit and a liar.
Limbaugh is obviously connected to Rubio in some way, perhaps importing cuban cigars and selling them with the tea. Limbo says rubio is right for attacking commie obama and I agree, but limbo says Rubio should attack the others by saying they have worked with obama. What? Ya mean rubio has NOT worked with the mooslim scumbag? What about gang of 8? TPP? Amnesty? Limbaugh has exposed himself and many peeps are picking up on his RINO activity.
The real point here is that Rubio’s canned answer was a no-brainer. People were predicting that Zer0 had no good intentions for America. When we heard Rev. Wright’s “G*d D**n America” sermons, we knew Zer0’s true colors. We had Zer0 pegged when he went on that world America is bad tour. He was Zer0 for America from the start. Zer0’s conclusions about America were the result of incompetent thinking formulated by Leftist slobs wallowing in the culture of Communist thinking.
Did you get your money refunded?
You are one gracious woman...I mean that as a sincere compliment.
No, the government isn’t incompetent because it’s full of morons, it’s incompetent because it’s too big. If you got rid of all the incompetents and left the government the same size, it would simply reload itself with more morons because a bureaucracy’s instinct is to enlarge itself, regardless of the costs or consequences. So, Cruz and Rubio are right.
Rush, are you losing it?
Rubio was toast even before the debate, with his back-and-forth stance on “illegal Immigration.” There’s no other word for it really, it’s amnesty, and it ain’t going over with GOP electorate.
His robotic, amateurish, five-times-repetetive performance on Saturday was like Edmund Muskie’s breakdown and crying in the 1968 campaign.
Muskie was toast from that moment, and Rubio is now toast with his robotic repetition on Saturday night that really says N-O-T-H-I-N-G that voters want to hear going forward.
Rush, you should have paid attention to Phyllis Scholarly on Rubio. Listen up, OK?
“Rush is blowing it.
This primary has really ripped off the veil.”
It sure has. I thought Rush was smarter than this.
>>Christie et al. keep saying that Obama’s main problem is his incompetence and ineffectiveness. Rush is basically saying, ‘No, no, Obama has been devastatingly effective in implementing his left-wing agenda.’ Sadly for the country, it’s true.<<
And I keep saying that Obama’s performance in office, and the results, are indicative of one of two things. Either Obama is:
1) One of the dumbest Presidents ever elected, or
2) He’s not on our side, i.e., America’s side.
As Rubio pointed out (too many times), he’s not dumb; he’s gotten a lot accomplished that he set out to do.
If that’s the case, the answer is #2.
Trump for President.
Oops, happy type.
Phyllis Schlafly...
Obama just reads the teleprompter and plays the game the way he's told to.
“Rubio was right..”
Rubio can be right about a lot of things and not make up for his gang of eight amnesty, treachery. As far as I’m concerned he has no credibility, but I’ll not turn my back to him.
Nobody disputes that Rubio was right. The problem is that Rubio didn’t hit Christie back on the MANY things he could have.......bridgegate, hugging Obama, working with Obama. And of course gang of 8 is always there no matter what Rubio does. I still think it was a mistake for him not to run for Governor of Florida during the idiotic Scott vs Christ election. Rubio probably would have won and gotten a bit of experience and perhaps shown voters that he isn’t the guy from the earlier Senate time where he turned liberal. But he decided he wanted the big prize. That I think was his biggest mistake. Not running for Governor.
Rush only gets one vote like the rest of us. He likes Trump I think. He just laughed at the media for the robot thing which is kind of dumb.
Not listening to Rush on my lunch break took some getting use to but today i did it with even thinking about it.
Hannity talking up Rubio too!
So they’re all frauds, are they?
I’m done with Rush. And Levin.
They have thrown in with their financial and political interests, rather than the good of the country.
Kuhner is just another Cruz bot like Levin. Bash Trump all the time. We don’t need or want him. We already don’t listen to Levin or Rush any more.
I repeat myself when under stress
I repeat myself when under stress
I repeat myself when under stress....
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