We discovered this week that we--along with most of the country--have been getting the name of Florida's junior senator wrong for years. We've been calling him "Marco Rubio," but during Saturday night's Republican debate, we learned that his real name is Macro Rubio.
Here's how Google defines the word:
RUBIO: And let's dispel once and for all [sic] 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.
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.
Macro's second answer:
RUBIO: But I would add this. Let's dispel with this fiction [sic, again] that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is trying to change this country. He wants America to become more like the rest of the world. We don't want to be like the rest of the world, we want to be the United States of America. And when I'm elected president, this will become once again, the single greatest nation in the history of the world, not the disaster Barack Obama has imposed upon us.
CHRISTIE: See Marco -- Marco, the thing is this. When you're president of the United States, when you're a governor of a state, the memorized 30-second speech where you talk about how great America is at the end of it doesn't solve one problem for one person. They expect you to plow the snow. They expect you to get the schools open. And when the worst natural disaster in your state's history hits you, they expect you to rebuild their state, which is what I've done.
None of that stuff happens on the floor of the United States Senate. It's a fine job, I'm glad you ran for it, but it does not prepare you for president of the United States.
RUBIO: Chris -- Chris, your state got hit by a massive snowstorm two weeks ago. You didn't even want to go back. They had to shame you into going back. And then you stayed there for 36 hours and then he left and came back to campaign. Those are the facts.
Here's the bottom line. This notion that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing is just not true. He knows exactly what he's doing.
CHRISTIE: There it is. There it is. The memorized 25-second speech. There it is, everybody.
RUBIO: Well, that's the -- that's the reason why this campaign is so important. Because I think this notion -- I think this is an important point. We have to understand what we're going through here. We are not facing a president that doesn't know what he's doing. He knows what he is doing. That's why he's done the things he's done.
That's why we have a president that passed Obamacare and the stimulus. All this damage that he's done to America is deliberate. This is a president that's trying to redefine this country. That's why this election is truly a referendum on our identity as a nation, as a people. Our future is at stake.
Rubio's eighth answer:
RUBIO: Well, here's the response. I think anyone who believes that Barack Obama isn't doing what he's doing on purpose doesn't understand what we're dealing with here, OK? This is a president -- this is a president who is trying to change this country. When he talked about change, he wasn't talking about dealing with our problems.
Obamacare was not an accident. The undermining of the Second Amendment is not an accident. The gutting of our military is not an accident. The undermining of America on the global stage is not an accident. Barack Obama is, indeed, trying to redefine this country. We better understand what we're dealing with here, because that's what Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders want to double down on if they are elected.
Five times during one debate. (And, Macro, it's "dispel" or "dispense with," not "dispel with." --ed.).
It's dumb, and it makes him sound like the robot that he is--that Chris Christie described.
But it's not what's really important about what he said. What's important is what he believes, and what he doesn't understand.
He's upset because President Obama changed the country? Can he name a two-term president who didn't? Ronald Reagan, who Macro admires, was a transformative president. George W. Bush changed the country, in ways we think were largely for the worse. And Macro wants to change the country.
According to the policies he espouses, he wants to change the country to a place where the government gets to decide who can marry whom, based on the religious beliefs of some--but hardly all--members of the public. He wants to change the country to one in which the insurance companies once again get the ultimate say over what medical treatments a sick person can try, one in which there are annual and lifetime caps on treatment, one in which being a female is a preexisting condition that requires one to pay higher prices, one in which millions of Americans have no health insurance coverage whatsoever. He wants to change the country into one that embraces torture. He wants to change the country into one with ever-increasing economic inequality--one where the rich get even more of the national wealth we all work for, and the middle class continues to shrink while the poor grow ever poorer. He wants to change the country into one in which the biggest corporations have all the power, and regular people have none.
The point isn't that Obama wants to change the country. Of course he does. The point is that Macro thinks that keeping the country from falling into another Great Depression was a bad idea. He thinks protecting the health of millions of American families was a bad thing. He thinks addressing climate change is a bad thing. He thinks preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is a bad thing. He thinks maintaining our historic prohibition against torture is a bad thing.
We beg to differ.
Does Macro really think America was perfect in 2008? Shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs, embroiled in two grueling wars in the Middle East, big banks setting their own rules? None of that needed changing? Apparently so, because he considers Obama's efforts to fix those things as a "disaster," as "damage he's done to America."
Those weren't the only robotic responses Macro made during the debate, of course. He went back to a few favorites, including his demonstration of why he doesn't understand enough to ever be Commander in Chief of the armed forces. He even admitted that he keeps repeating this particular bit of idiocy:
RUBIO: I think the more fundamental challenge we're now facing is what's happening to the U.S. military -- I've said this many times, and I think it's important to start paying attention to this. Our Air Force is about to be the smallest it's been in 100 years. I'm sorry, in our history. Our Army is set to be smaller than it's been since the second World War, and our Navy is about to be the smallest than it's been in 100 years.
Amazingly, the dumbest thing he did there wasn't "correcting" himself to make himself more wrong on the Air Force. The Air Force was "born" in 1947, so there were plenty of times in our history--most of our history--in which we had no Air Force at all. Zero is considerably smaller than what we have now.
But the main point, Macro, is that you don't measure the strength of a military force by number of ships or planes or soldiers. You measure it by capability. Our military capability is is the greatest it's ever been, by a long shot. If you truly don't understand that, then maybe you need to go back to Florida and study up. If you do understand it but you think the American people are so ignorant that we don't understand it, you need to learn some respect for the country you claim to love. Either way, you're not suited to occupy the White House.
It's not just because you sound like you've been programmed. It's because the direction you want to take the country--the changes you want to make, whether you admit that's what they are or not--are changes that take us in the wrong direction. You're right about one thing--we are the greatest nation in history. We're better than you, that's for sure.
Side Note: Macro wasn't the only one on that stage who doesn't understand fundamentals of military action.
CRUZ: Now, when I say saturation carpet bombing, that is not indiscriminate.
That is targeted at oil facilities. It's targeted at the oil tankers. It's targeted at command and control locations. It's targeted at infrastructure. It's targeted at communications. It's targeted at bombing all of the roads and bridges going in and out of Raqqa. It's using overwhelming air power.
What Sen. Cruz is talking about here are two different things. Saturation carpet bombing is, by definition, indiscriminate. Targeted bombing is not saturation carpet bombing. Period. If Cruz doesn't understand that, he's another guy who should only get in the White House by taking the tour.
Tomorrow we'll know how the voters of New Hampshire feel about these two geniuses.
Edited to add: Looks like New Hampshire wasn't particularly impressed with Macro or Cruz. Glad to see Kasich in second place--he's very conservative, but he's running a positive campaign, and he acts like an adult.
Kasich worries me. He seems reasonable on the national stage, but he's an anti-union, anti-teachers, feeding off wealthy charter school donors kind of guy. He's been bad for Ohio and he'd be worse for the nation.
Tony from Ohio
Posted by: Tony Isabella | 02/10/2016 at 06:30 PM
Trust me, I don’t harbor any illusions that he’s a secret moderate or anything. I know he’s as conservative as they come. But it’s refreshing that there’s one person on that side who’s not trying to run on the basis of infantilizing or demonizing the president. I feel like the rest of the Republican contenders are thoroughly reprehensible, while in Kasich there’s a deeply buried core of decency that’s slightly embarrassed by the others.
But I think he’d be a disaster for America. I don’t think he has a shot at the nomination, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on anybody’s ticket, on the theory that he can help carry Ohio.
Posted by: Jeff Mariotte | 02/10/2016 at 07:22 PM