Rubio: Obama's Libya Policy Too Little, Too Late

Freshman Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says he is glad that Libyan tyrant Moammar Gadhafi might soon be completely void of power, but the Obama administration’s policy regarding the strife-torn nation was too little and too late. Rubio also told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Tuesday he is flattered by the chatter focusing on his possibly running in the second spot on a GOP presidential ticket in 2012, but his name is not the only one being mentioned and others will be in the future.
 

“Well, unfortunately I think on Libya, the policy was too late to come to a coherent policy,” Rubio said. “I’m very happy that Moammar Gadhafi is not going to be around in Libya — and I actually think the administration didn’t handle that well because they waited too long to move one way or the other.

“You know where they wanted to go — but they had to make a move early and be decisive,” he said. “But we should be happy for the people in Libya — the world is going to be a better place that Moammar Gadhafi is not in charge of Libya. But that aside, I mean, the role of America — one of the most important roles we play — is just to be an example to the world to show that you can have both prosperity and still be a compassionate country.”

Switching topics, Hannity noted that some of the talk surrounding the possibility of Rubio being a Republican vice presidential candidate is because of his tea party support. The Fox host wanted to know what Rubio thought of recent comments slamming the tea party.

“Well, without having heard specifically all those comments, I can only tell you that my experience has been that the more heated the rhetoric, the likelier is they can’t win the public policy argument,” Rubio said. “Look, the country’s headed in a terrible direction . . . unemployment is higher, our economy is not growing. And so if you’re part of the group of people that supported those policies, you can’t defend the policy — you’re not going to win on that — the only way you are going to win and convince people to vote for you is to really try to demonize the other side.”