Since last night's debate meltdown for Marco "Boy in the Bubble" Rubio, I've seen a gazillion tweets, comments, stories, etc. on how he "choked," how he's like a mindless robot, how Chris Christie kicked his butt, yada yada yada. All that's true - and highly revealing of this pathetic lightweight - but what I haven't really seen is any focus on the substance of what Rubio's robotically-repeated anti-Obama attack line actually said, and why it's a huge, fat, stinking pile of wackiness and paranoia. First, here's the memorized 25-or-30-second screed.
And let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing. Barack Obama is undertaking a systematic effort to change this country, to make America more like the rest of the world.My god...where do we even go with this stinking pile of elephant manure? A few points.
That's why he passed Obamacare and the stimulus and Dodd-Frank and the deal with Iran. It is a systematic effort to change America. When I'm president of the United States, we are going to re-embrace all the things that made America the greatest nation in the world and we are going to leave our children with what they deserve: the single greatest nation in the history of the world.
- Is there really anyone out there, at least outside the right-wing fever swamps, who actually believes the laughable "fiction" of which Rubio speaks, that supposedly Barack Obama - a brilliant man, whatever else you might think of him, and extremely competent - doesn't "know what he's doing?" Is that like the biggest straw man ever to set up and knock down? Of course, there are those on the far right who simultaneously believe that Obama is: a) weak/utterly incompetent AND b) a ruthless, conniving, calculating dictator wannabe. I mean, yeah, obviously those things are utterly contradictory, not to mention bonkers, yet that hasn't stopped the far right from believing them simultaneously -- kinda like they simultaneously believe Obama went to Jeremiah Wright's CHRISTIAN church for years, yet somehow is actually a MUSLIM. Crazy, I know.
- Only with a Tea Party exremist like Rubio can it be a BAD thing to know what you're doing. Of course, this is coming from a guy (Rubio) who has accomplished absolutely nothing in his time in the Senate, to the extent that one of his top surrogates (Rick Santorum) couldn't even list a single Rubio accomplishment the other day on tee-vee.
- As for this "systematic effort to change the country" and supposedly to "make America more like the rest of the world," it's hard to even know what to say. I mean, why on earth would ANYONE run for president if they didn't want to "change the country" (for the better in their view, obviously) in some way. That's kind of why people run for president on campaign emphasizing "change." On the Republican side, of course, we've got people who want to "take America back" -- to the time before Social Security, Medicare, minimum wages, clean air, clean water, safe food, voting rights, civil rights, and a bunch of other stuff we take for granted. As for Obama, of course he's tried to change things -- for the better. And he's succeeded, thank goodness - from the utter DISASTER he inherited from Bush/Cheney. Thus, today the economy is growing (as opposed to melting down, as it was in January 2009), unemployment is down to 4.9%, the stock market is around double what it was when Obama took over, U.S. energy production (particularly oil, natural gas, wind and solar) has skyrocketed and imports have plummeted, millions more Americans are covered with health insurance, Iran has dismantled its nuclear weapons program, etc, etc. Horrible, huh? Yet Rubio somehow makes this all sound sinister. Bizarro.
- I've said this a million times, but "Obamacare" is basically Romneycare and/or the Republican alternative to "Hillarycare" (btw, these nicknames are so stupid...gack) in 1993-1994. "Obamacare" incorporates a lot of conservative ideas, from the individual mandate to keeping a private/for-profit health insurance system to...you name it, basically. And it's mostly working so far, despite reletnless Republican attempts to sabotage it. What's the problem, then? Other than the fact that it's a major Democratic accomplishment, and that it doesn't help Republicans' favorite people - the top 0.1% - nothing, of course.
- As for Dodd-Frank, apparently Rubio believes (falsely) that it "cripples innovation and economic growth." Fact checkers have had a field day with this line of attack: see Rubio’s fantasy figure on bank closures due to Dodd-Frank, Marco Rubio slams Dodd-Frank, gets his numbers wrong, etc. As for "crippl[ing] economic grwoth," Rubio can only WISH that the economy performed as well under Republican presidents than under Democratic ones (Bill Clinton and Barack Obama combined saw job creation of around 31 MILLION during their terms in office; Reagan and the two Bushes combined saw around 20 MILLION, far fewer than the Clinton/Obama combination, and I'm even giving the Republians an extra presidential term to be generous! LOL)
