An American statesman was born on a German stage over the weekend.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s impressive performance at the Munich Security Conference gives us an alluring glimpse of the president he could be one day.
Rubio drew a standing ovation from the assembled European heads of state, intelligence chiefs, and military leaders for a speech that was no less forceful or frank than VP JD Vance’s address that jarred the same forum last year, but was delivered with a mellifluous voice and calm humility that disarmed even the most arch Euro-socialist.
Rubio was warm and reassuring rather than sneering and contemptuous.
But that was no accident. He was playing “good cop” to Vance’s “bad cop,” a strategy that paid off with the collective “sigh of relief” that conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger expressed afterward, as he motioned to the audience to sit and praised Rubio’s “message of reassurance.”
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