The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Marco Rubio: You Can Cool Your Heels In The Senate, But Don’t Stop There

Posted on | May 5, 2010 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

There is a reason why lesser candidates are wetting themselves at the thought of running against a simple, humble, clear speaker:

Comments

7 Responses to “Marco Rubio: You Can Cool Your Heels In The Senate, But Don’t Stop There”

  1. rain of lead
    May 6th, 2010 @ 2:25 am

    I know this is ot but I need to vent
    over the weekend here in middle tennessse we had a little flood,only killed 19 people, 10 in Nashville alone….well this local writer
    says it much better than I can….

    Allow me a moment to step away from the usual voice of this website.

    What I am about to write has absolutely nothing to do with hockey.

    If you live outside of Nashville, you may not be aware, but our city was hit by a 500-year flood over the last few days. The national news coverage gave us 15 minutes, but went back to focusing on a failed car bomb and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While both are clearly important stories, was that any reason to ignore our story? It may not be as terror-sexy as a failed car bomb or as eco-sexy as an oil spill, but that’s no reason to be ignored.

    The Cumberland River crested at its highest level in over 80 years. Nashville had its highest rainfall totals since records began. People drowned. Billions of dollars in damage occurred. It is the single largest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War. And yet…no one knows about it.

    Does it really matter? Eventually, it will…as I mentioned, there are billions of dollars in damage. It seems bizarre that no one seems to be aware that we just experienced what is quite possibly the costliest non-hurricane disaster in American history. The funds to rebuild will have to come from somewhere, which is why people need to know. It’s hard to believe that we will receive much relief if there isn’t a perception that we need it.

    But let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.

    Some will be quick to find fault in the way rescue operations were handled, but the fact of the matter is that the catastrophe could not have been prevented and it is simply ignorant beyond all reason to suggest otherwise. It is a flood. It was caused by rain. You can try to find a face to stick this tragedy to, but you’ll be wrong.

    Parts of Nashville that could never even conceivably be underwater were underwater. Some of them still are. Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel are, for all intents and purposes, destroyed. People died sitting in standstill traffic on the Interstate. We saw boats going down West End. And, of course, we all saw the surreal image of the portable building from Lighthouse Christian floating into traffic and being destroyed when cars were knocked into it. I’m still having trouble comprehending all of it.

    And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.

    Because we are Nashville.

    thanks for letting me vent
    rol

  2. rain of lead
    May 5th, 2010 @ 9:25 pm

    I know this is ot but I need to vent
    over the weekend here in middle tennessse we had a little flood,only killed 19 people, 10 in Nashville alone….well this local writer
    says it much better than I can….

    Allow me a moment to step away from the usual voice of this website.

    What I am about to write has absolutely nothing to do with hockey.

    If you live outside of Nashville, you may not be aware, but our city was hit by a 500-year flood over the last few days. The national news coverage gave us 15 minutes, but went back to focusing on a failed car bomb and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While both are clearly important stories, was that any reason to ignore our story? It may not be as terror-sexy as a failed car bomb or as eco-sexy as an oil spill, but that’s no reason to be ignored.

    The Cumberland River crested at its highest level in over 80 years. Nashville had its highest rainfall totals since records began. People drowned. Billions of dollars in damage occurred. It is the single largest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War. And yet…no one knows about it.

    Does it really matter? Eventually, it will…as I mentioned, there are billions of dollars in damage. It seems bizarre that no one seems to be aware that we just experienced what is quite possibly the costliest non-hurricane disaster in American history. The funds to rebuild will have to come from somewhere, which is why people need to know. It’s hard to believe that we will receive much relief if there isn’t a perception that we need it.

    But let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.

    Some will be quick to find fault in the way rescue operations were handled, but the fact of the matter is that the catastrophe could not have been prevented and it is simply ignorant beyond all reason to suggest otherwise. It is a flood. It was caused by rain. You can try to find a face to stick this tragedy to, but you’ll be wrong.

    Parts of Nashville that could never even conceivably be underwater were underwater. Some of them still are. Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel are, for all intents and purposes, destroyed. People died sitting in standstill traffic on the Interstate. We saw boats going down West End. And, of course, we all saw the surreal image of the portable building from Lighthouse Christian floating into traffic and being destroyed when cars were knocked into it. I’m still having trouble comprehending all of it.

    And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.

    Because we are Nashville.

    thanks for letting me vent
    rol

  3. I’m not sure who is wetting themselves « A Conservative Shemale
    May 6th, 2010 @ 1:30 am

    […] not sure who is wetting themselves May 5, 2010 by jenn1964 At The Other McCain Smitty writes of Marco Rubio – There is a reason why lesser candidates are wetting themselves at […]

  4. hrh
    May 6th, 2010 @ 5:12 pm

    Sorry, but Rubio is Romney’s shill (Romneycare) and Jeb Bush’s shill (lax immigration control).

    He talks like a conservative but doesn’t walk like one. He will do the GOP dynasty’s bidding. He already is.

    Glad I don’t live in Florida…

  5. hrh
    May 6th, 2010 @ 12:12 pm

    Sorry, but Rubio is Romney’s shill (Romneycare) and Jeb Bush’s shill (lax immigration control).

    He talks like a conservative but doesn’t walk like one. He will do the GOP dynasty’s bidding. He already is.

    Glad I don’t live in Florida…

  6. McGehee
    May 7th, 2010 @ 2:33 am

    Is that the same GOP dynasty that was backing Crist for that seat until Crist turned coat and ditched them?

    Um, okay.

  7. McGehee
    May 6th, 2010 @ 9:33 pm

    Is that the same GOP dynasty that was backing Crist for that seat until Crist turned coat and ditched them?

    Um, okay.