Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:46 pm
It’s funny that Marco Rubio is forced to fend off accusations from Breitbart.com, which has made an industry of inventing accusations against Democrats. Neil Cavuto of Fox News asked Rubio Saturday about a Breitbart “exclusive” claiming the candidate betrayed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers the 2013 Gang of Eight immigration fight.
According to Rubio, “We don’t even credential them for our events. I literally don’t even talk about the things they report because they’re conspiracy theories and often times manipulated.â€
Ouch. It doesn’t help, you can be sure, that Bretibart is pro-Trump. That it has even been accused of taking money from Trump to say nice things about him.
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Here is the transcript from Media Matters for America:
NEIL CAVUTO (HOST): You have former ICE officials now, who are saying that your push for enforcement along the border hasn’t been consistent. That when you were a part of that Gang of Eight, that you were not making it a priority. When they questioned this Chris Crane, who ran this council group of officers, said that”not one of the changes we suggested was made to the bill before Senator Rubio introducedit,”that he tried and failed with you repeatedly, that your heart wasn’t in it.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): Yeah, number one, that’s not true and he’s not an ICE official. He’s the head of a union. And it’s being reported on a website that’s not a credible source. It’s the same website that said, Neil, that you guys gave me the questions to the debate because one of the members of my staff has a family member that runs —
CAVUTO: So this was at Breitbart, so you don’t give it any credence,or his remarks any credence?
RUBIO: We don’t even credential them for our events. This is the same website that reported that Fox News — and that you,and youguys,inyour debate — gave me the questions to the debate so I could prepare. You know that that’s not true. So, I literally don’t even talk about the things they report because they’re basically conspiracy theories and often times manipulated.
Paul Krugman has an interesting take on the Republican presidential race: “Marco Rubio has yet to win anything, but by losing less badly than other non-Trump candidates he has become the overwhelming choice of the Republican establishment.” It helps, of course, that Jeb Bush was never really in the race and then dropped out.
Trump would probably disagree that after Trump come degrees of losers. He appears to lump them all together as equally inconsequential. It’s going to be he and Hillary, he says.
Rubio, of course, used to be a Wunderkind. That’s German for a child prodigy, literally a “wonder child.” That was back in 2012 and 2013. Then he wasn’t. He still isn’t. He’s just all the establishment has got left to pin their hopes upon. It’s a grim situation, as we have observed before.
Krugman isn’t about to predict Rubio’s chances, but he makes a very valid observation that others ought to be making (about Kasich as well) and that is that we shouldn’t confusing “establishment” with “moderate”: “one shouldn’t treat establishment support as an indication that Mr. Rubio is moderate and sensible.”
Krugman goes on to mention policy views that would designate him a “fringe crank” and his willingness to “bonfire of civil liberties,” and that doesn’t even include a tax policy that would leave Mitt Romney paying zero in federal taxes and twice-as-big-as-Bush tax-cuts. We’re talking George W. Bush. The tax cuts which, combined with two wars, broke America’s economic back.
We have already seen PFAW’s take on the Republican field and they too fail to see much difference between candidates. Vote-wise one can be less of a loser than another, but looking at their competence to be president its six of one, half dozen of another; Trump has all the bluster, Cruz the sinister, sheer-evilness, and Rubio the utter cluelessness.
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones once put it more bluntly: Rubio is a moron. There is plenty of evidence to support this.
That was last summer when Rubio was falling over himself trying to answer whether he thought Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Today, add to that his work ethic, a recent example of which is his failure to even show-up in South Carolina.
Drum said, and this remains true today, “Most of the time he sounds like a ten-year-old trying to sound tough in front of the older kids.”
In a field of also-rans, Rubio barely qualifies as an also-ran. And to listen to Trump, like Cruz, Rubio is not even really an American. It is probably less who he is that has gotten him this far (a barely second place finish in South Carolina) than who he isn’t.
Were Rubio to actually beat out Trump for the nomination, what Democrats did to the utterly clueless Mitt Romney (e.g. the DNC’s whichmitt.com) would pale by comparison to the beating Rubio would face over his already vast compendium of idiotic statements.
Top Ten lists began to be compiled the moment he first opened his mouth. Nothing Breitbart can invent can out-do the things Rubio has actually said. That’s how bad it is and a taste of how bad it will be. Breitbart is the least of Marco Rubio’s problems. His biggest enemy is himself.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
