To be a good legislator and to move public opinion on important issues, a senator sometimes must make proposals that, taken out of context, can distort the senator’s overarching position, creating the illusion that he favors what he clearly opposes, and vice versa.
...
It would be disingenuous to portray Rubio, an ardent Iran-deal opponent, as an Iran-deal supporter on this basis. Yet that is exactly what Rubio is trying to do to Cruz on immigration.
...
To his credit, Rubio, like Cruz, was a staunch opponent of President Obama’s agreement to provide over $100 billion to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism while rendering that regime a threshold nuclear power. Yet, in a manner reminiscent of the Gang of Eight, senior Beltway Republicans joined the Obama Left in crafting the so-called Corker-Cardin legislation, a bill that would prevent Congress from rejecting the deal.
So Rubio, like Cruz, proposed amendments in an effort to blow up the deal. Rubio, for example, proposed that any agreement require Iran’s leaders to accept Israel’s right to exist. Rubio well knew this poison pill had no chance of being adopted. But he was not trying to improve the Iran deal. Rubio was, as Time magazine observed, trying to kill the Iran deal.
Now, using the logic of Rubio’s “amnesty” attack on Cruz, one could argue that, if the deal satisfied the condition that Iran acknowledge the Jewish state’s legitimate existence, Rubio would support it — despite the agreement’s material support to terrorism and facilitation of Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. That, however, would be a smear.