The gop obama

The breadth and passion of the reactions are more evidence that, in the maw of the Elections Industrial Complex, Rubio is the Republican answer to Obama. They’re both great speakers. They came to prominence as fresh-faced minority senators. They inspire irrational zeal among their supporters and derangement among their opponents. (Rubio was even targeted by the birther movement that says neither he nor Obama is a natural-born citizen.)

Obama and Rubio also seem to share similar views on the creation of the Earth, which Slate.com pointed out recently. Here’s Barack Obama at a CNN-hosted “Compassion Forum” on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania in April 2008:

“I believe that God created the universe. And that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it. It may not be 24-hour days. And that’s what I believe. I know there’s always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don’t, and that I think it’s a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I’m a part. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live — that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don’t presume to know.”

This received virtually no press at the time, according to a Nexis search. Instead, Obama was reeling from his own gaffe in which he described “bitter” voters who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who are not like them.”

The “guns or religion” comments received more attention back then because some wanted to frame Obama as an out-of-touch elitist. Obama also did a better job than Rubio of explaining how he views science and religion.

In contrast, Rubio seemed to gleefully stoke the coals of speculation by taking to Twitter and playing up other comments in GQ where he sort of dissed the rapper Pitbull.

Rubio just had to explain how he felt about Mr. 305. The Earth’s creation about 4.5 billion years ago could wait. This was Rubio feeding the Elections Industrial Complex. And why not? It has been good to him, furnishing him incessant attention and therefore political power.

For the record, in the decade we’ve covered the West Miami resident, Rubio has never sounded or really acted like a religious fundamentalist. But he is deeply conservative in many of his religious beliefs and he has voiced support for a modified type of Creationism, known as Intelligent Design.

As Florida House Speaker in 2008, Rubio passively supported an Intelligent Design-related bill, but allowed it to die in his chamber. He spent no political capital on it. And he didn’t suggest then that the Earth was only a few thousand years old or that this was subject to scientific dispute.

None of that was mentioned by the liberals intent on making Rubio into a right-wing nutcase this month.

Missing out

But in defending Marco the Martyr, conservatives also missed out. None mentioned that, when Rubio wondered about the Earth being created in “7 days,” he got the number wrong by a full day (God rested on the seventh day, so the Earth was created in six).

And who got that biblical fact right? None other than that fundamentalist Bible-thumper: Barack Obama.