Good and bad things I heard last night

Sen. Marco Rubio’s rebuttal to State of the Union last night was notable mostly for what it didn’t do: spend more than a hot second on the subject of immigration. I’ve been impressed to see the Florida Republican working to convince conservatives that it’s time for immigration reform. Sure, his urgency may be as electoral as it is moral. But that doesn’t make him wrong.

Still, despite Rubio’s considerable gifts—and despite the low bar set by a thankless speaking gig—he sounded pretty out of touch. He led with the myth that Americans have singular access to social mobility, a line that runaway inequality makes less true than ever. Soon he was bashing big-government tax-and-spenders. Was he watching a different SOTU than I was?

Of course, Rubio’s speech was written before Obama entered the House chamber; it wasn’t really a direct rebuttal. Still, he probably could have guessed that SOTU was being written by a team of presidential speechwriters, not liberal straw men. And the facts about the size of the federal government—low taxes in historical perspective, shrinking deficits—are readily available.