Thread: Rubio Fails First Post Announcement Test

Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s just-announced presidential campaign was in large measure base on three pillars; his compelling immigrant family story, his claim on conservative support as one of the 2010 Tea Party wave election’s brightest stars and his commitment of righting the foreign policy failures and world chaos wrought by President Obama and his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Yet, in his first post announcement test – the vote on the dangerous Iran nuclear weapons treaty bill put forward by Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker – Rubio voted for that dangerous bill and failed to take the bold conservative stands that would have distinguished him from the huge Republican field.
What’s more, Senator Rubio, who earlier had said he would advance an amendment that would have required the president to certify to Congress that Iran recognizes the state of Israel, wilted and settled for language asserting that the nuclear agreement would not compromise U.S. support for Israel’s right to exist.

Affirmation of Israel's right to exist is of course is a foundational principle of American foreign policy that was never questioned until Obama became president and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill became not so much the leaders of an opposition party, as a collection of craven cowards who wish only to avoid the unpleasantness actually having principles and standing for them would entail.

If Senator Rubio was trying to communicate to Jewish voters that he would support Israel, his craven retreat on his amendment on Iranian recognition of Israel surely showed them that he could not be trusted to fulfill his commitments to them.
What the bill Senator Rubio voted for does is require the president to submit for congressional review the final nuclear agreement reached between Iran, the U.S. and its five negotiating partners. The bill does maintain the prohibition on the president waiving congressionally enacted sanctions against Iran during the review period.
However, the review period in the measure has been shortened from 60 days to an initial 30 days. If, at the end of the 30 days, Congress were to pass a bill on sanctions relief and send it to the president, an additional 12 days would be automatically added to the review period. This could be another 10 days of review if the president vetoed the resulting sanctions bill.

Corker’s legislation in effect lowers the threshold for approving the Iran deal from 67 votes to 41 – a craven betrayal of the Senate’s constitutional role as the final word on whether or not the United States agrees to a treaty.

As the editors of The Wall Street Journal analyzed it, “The majority could offer a resolution of disapproval, but that could be filibustered by Democrats and vetoed by the President. As few as 41 Senate Democrats could thus vote to prevent it from ever getting to President Obama’s desk—and 34 could sustain a veto. Mr. Obama could then declare that Congress had its say and ‘approved’ the Iran deal even if a majority in the House and Senate voted to oppose it.”

This process turns the Senate’s constitutional advice and consent power and responsibility completely on its head.

The Corker bill sets-up a process for approving a treaty that is completely outside the constitutional framework. If Senator Rubio expects to claim some share of the limited government constitutional conservative vote that on its face should have been sufficient cause to vote against the bill.

In voting for the Corker bill Marco Rubio joined Senator Corker in betraying a host of interests who were looking to him as one candidate for president who had stressed foreign policy in his announcement and who was committed to subduing the dangers Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have loosed on the world.

Instead Marco Rubio joined Bob Corker and betrayed American interests and the interests of our allies in the greater Middle East; from Israel, to Saudi Arabia, to India no nation now within the range of Iran’s fast growing missile technology is secure from the threat of a nuclear armed Islamist Iran.

But instead of the bold and honest foreign policy based on conservative principles Senator Rubio promised, what his vote for the Corker bill did was advance what is perhaps Barack Obama’s most dangerous foreign policy action to-date – legitimizing Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the missile program that makes it a worldwide threat.

And make no mistake – it is the combination of Iran’s expansionist Islamism and nuclear weapons technology that is the threat. If Senator Rubio does not understand that he is unfit to be a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, let alone President.

Supporting Corker’s extra-constitutional bill to advance the Obama – Iran nuclear weapons treaty is a failure that ought to disqualify Marco Rubio to be the Republican standard bearer in 2016, unless he takes the opportunity to redeem himself by voting against this existential threat to constitutional government and American national security interests when it reaches the floor.

We urge you to call Senator Rubio and your Senators TODAY (the Capitol Switchboard is 1-866-220-0044) and demand that they oppose the Corker bill – tell your Senators the Corker bill is worse than no bill at all and is a betrayal of the Senate’s constitutional role in approving treaties, a betrayal of America’s interests in the face of the existential threat of a nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Iran, and a betrayal of all peoples across the globe who share the values of freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

http://www.conservativehq.com/articl...ouncement-test

Part of our government's problem is that participating individuals judge themselves on their intent (to do good), while what matters is the results of their action or inaction. Huge chasm exists between those, a chasm that they have proven to be unwilling to overcome.