What Marco Rubio said and didn’t say in the Weekly Republican Address

Marco Rubio delivered the Weekly Republican Address on Saturday.

It addressed some very familiar themes, served a couple of key rhetorical purposes, and managed to avoid the Donald Trump question all together.

Rather, it focused on a very narrow window of time, hermetically sealed from the presidential election: the next four months; the time until the current president is out of office.

Hearkening back to the New American Century themes of his presidential campaign, the speech discussed Islamic terrorism, and a way forward from the current strategy, via a directive: “to rebuild our military, to reassure our traditional allies, and reassert American leadership on the world stage.”

Rubio’s speech begins with a description of “the evil face of radical Islamic terrorism,” which “has again appeared on American soil. We’ve seen attacks in Minnesota, New Jersey and New York.”

Rubio then contended that the “war against our country that has evolved, from terrorists with box cutters hijacking airplanes and flying them into buildings 15 years ago, to the threat of bombs targeting the Boston Marathon and charity 5K runs, speeding trucks being rammed into large crowds, makeshift bombs built with instructions obtained online, and knives and guns being used to massacre people in places like Orlando, Fort Hood, Chattanooga and San Bernardino.”

While Rubio asserts that the battle between agents of Islamic terror is a “war that we must win,” he asserts that the president isn’t up to the challenge of winning it with his current strategy; especially, in this address, “Obama’s desire to close GTMO and a concomitant willingness to bring terrorist detainees stateside.

Rubio likened that to the “disastrous deal with Iran,” and advised that “it’s up to the American people and those of us in Congress to stop him.”

For Rubio, in a competitive race for re-election against Rep. Patrick Murphy, this speech serves a couple of discrete functions.

For one thing, it allows the senator to assume his place anew as one of the leading lights of the National Greatness Conservatism wing of the Grand Old Party.

And for another thing, the address allows Rubio to go on the offense against President Barack Obama, who along with Vice President Joe Biden have done ads and fundraisers for Rep. Murphy.

Notable in this speech: no reference, at all, to the 2016 elections.

There was nothing approaching a call for party unity behind the presidential nominee.