He Kind of Reminds me of a Young James Inhofe. Or an Old One.

I covered the only memorable thing I got from Sen. Rubio's SOTU rebuttal at Rumproast,  but I didn't (and still don't) have much to say about President Obama's SOTU speech itself. It was in some ways a continuation of his inaugural speech, and he spent more time on climate change and taking steps to do something about it, and that's great. But I kind of expected it. What amazes me is that not only did Rubio's fairly boilerplate "tax, spend, commies, treehuggers" rebuttal approach pure denialism as far as climate goes, but it seems so--well, you just listen to him on FOX the next day:



Y'hear that?  Via ThinkProgress:

RUBIO: The government can’t change the weather. I said that in the speech. We can pass a bunch of laws that will destroy our economy, but it isn’t going to change the weather. Because, for example, there are other countries that are polluting in the atmosphere much greater than we are at this point, China, India, all these countries that are still growing. They’re not going to stop doing what they’re doing. America is a country, it’s not a planet. So we can pass a bunch of laws or executive orders that will do nothing to change the climate or the weather but will devastate our economy.

Now, at the link, Adam Peck does a nice job of taking this apart, but what strikes me is that this is just verbatim denialist spew.  Rubio doesn't really know the difference between weather and climate (not a scientist--indeed!)?  But the gibberish line "America is a country, not a planet" is something I quoted him as saying just the other day. I guess he likes the ring of it, and I guess I know what he means: How is our changing our habits meaningful if other countries don't live up to their end of the bargain?

Well, it is meaningful in an incremental way, and in terms of the competitive nature of advancing any technology, it doesn't hurt if we try to be at or near the forefront of innovation, does it? And do you know what would really bugger the economy up in the long run? That's right--climate change itself, as no less than the head of the IMF has said.

I understand the desire of the GOP to find a fresh, young face who, for example, knows who Tupac was.  I get that in some ways it's neat to have a babyfaced muppet try to make the party seem rejuvenated, and as a fellow Gen-x-er, I kind of worried when he was sweating and cotton-mouthed giving his rebuttal, that perhaps he dropped a little X to get himself through the affair and hoped that he finished his speech before the some clothes came off. But he fails at hip, if when he opens his mouth to talk about climate change, George Will or some bowtie like that falls out.  If they want to think about the future--for goodness' sake think about the future!

I don't see him as ready to lead the GOP out of the wilderness, so much as ready to repeat the same old bullshit--but let's give him credit for recycliing, hey?