Pirate's Cove

Back in 2008, the Washington Post Editorial Board published a gushing piece coming out (unsurprisingly) for Barack Obama, based on Obama’s ideals and beliefs, but failed to mention one thing he had actually done during his adult years that made him qualified in the least for the job of POTUS (BTW, the piece is a howler, which you have got to read for a hoot). In 2015, well, things change. Because Republican

Mr. Rubio offers a candidacy based on ideals

MARCO RUBIO formally entered the GOP presidential field Monday with an address at Miami’s Freedom Tower. The setting, a building through which Cuban immigrants transited in their escape from Fidel Castro’s Cuba, highlighted two core themes on which the Florida senator will base his campaign: an inspiring personal story and a promise to muscularly advance American values, particularly abroad. “When America fails to lead, global chaos inevitably follows,” he said to loud cheers.

His record is less clear-cut than those themes. A leading face of the 2010 tea party insurgency, Mr. Rubio has spent more time working with establishment Republicans than against them during his four years in the Senate. A first-term senator without executive experience, he is attempting to cast himself as a tough leader with experience in foreign affairs. A Republican who promotes tax cuts for the wealthy, he also supports a governmental role in alleviating poverty.

Suddenly, executive experience is important. Suddenly themes are unimportant. Weird, right?

Sometimes, however, he has ducked when political courage has been needed. In the Foreign Affairs Committee, he voted against President Obama’s plan to strike Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime in Syria after Mr. Assad had killed 1,400 civilians with chemical weapons, even though he had sharply criticized Mr. Obama for inaction in the conflict. (Mr. Obama later changed his mind.) As a leader in Florida’s legislature, he oversaw passage of climate change policy, but since rising into the national spotlight he has struggled to articulate a position on the basic science. His reform-minded tax plan would balloon the debt.

Strange that the WPEB wasn’t concerned about Obama ducking virtually every single tough vote, consistently voting “present” during his time in politics at both the State and Federal levels.

Mr. Rubio declared Monday that his campaign is about the future, setting the country on the right course at home and abroad so that it can live up to the ideals that allowed the son of Cuban immigrants to become a serious presidential contender. “The time has come for our generation to lead the way toward a new American century,” he declared. If his record has its share of contradictions, his status as a fresh face, relatively unknown to most voters, gives him a chance to define himself with greater focus and clarity.

In other words, a chance to define himself more as an Establishment Republican who sucks up to liberal news outlets and provides more legislation that Liberals like. Think on this from the 2008 piece ending

ANY PRESIDENTIAL vote is a gamble, and Mr. Obama’s résumé is undoubtedly thin. We had hoped, throughout this long campaign, to see more evidence that Mr. Obama might stand up to Democratic orthodoxy and end, as he said in his announcement speech, “our chronic avoidance of tough decisions.”

But Mr. Obama’s temperament is unlike anything we’ve seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right man for a perilous moment.

So, style over accomplishment was good for Obama, but not Rubio, who actually has some accomplishments, including being the majority leader and Speaker of the House in the Florida legislature, actually Doing. We can certainly expect much more of these types of opposition in contradiction to what Liberal news outlets believed from 2008 as the long, long, long election cycle cruises on.

Crossed at Right Wing News.