In the Daily Beast, Senior Congressional Correspondent Tim Mak is Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over Marco Rubio’s speech Wednesday before the Council on Foreign Relations:

“The student has now become the teacher.

“Sen. Marco Rubio, once viewed as a protege of presidential competitor Jeb Bush, schooled the former Florida governor Wednesday evening in the first national security address of his national campaign.

“As compared to Jeb Bush, who fumbled and stumbled through his first major national security address, Marco Rubio delivered a master class on foreign policy that spoke to the soul of the right’s hawkish neoconservatives.”

As Chronicles readers know, I’m not exactly a fan of Jeb or any other Bush, and don’t think he will be president. But no doubt Jeb is brushing up on his foreign policy chops with long talks with his brother, the former president. Jeb’s stumble hurt him no more than did Marco’s water disaster back when he gave the Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union more than two years ago – because neither is going to get the nomination anyway.

Mak reported Marco is “open to Ukraine joining NATO.” But that’s just blather. He didn’t say it would happen.

Earlier this month, Rubio wrote in an op-ed in Politico Europe:

“Our goal should never be to needlessly antagonize Russia, but rather to ensure our efforts to strengthen Ukraine and rollback Russian aggression are coupled with a forward-looking agenda for Russia’s own future.

“We also know, however, that we must never allow our desire for peace to lead us into weakness or inaction….

“More U.S. gas on the global market will create global liquidity and alternative supply options for Ukraine and American allies, drive down prices, put pressure on Russia to re-negotiate the gas pipeline contracts that it uses as political leverage against its neighbors, and create jobs.”

All nonsense. The price of gas/oil is determined by the global market; and the price has averaged 15 barrels oil per ounce of gold (despite fluctuations) since the end of WWII – 70 years. And how is he going to get U.S. energy to Ukraine, via a pipeline from Miami?

“Fourth, we must provide increased assistance to Ukraine. The United States and willing allies must provide weaponry to help Ukraine defend itself.”

So more thousands of Ukrainians will kill one another to profit the U.S. military-industrial complex.

“Fifth, we must enlarge NATO. Allies need to overcome the roadblocks to enlargement before the next NATO summit — including by inviting Montenegro to join the alliance — and to reaffirm that the open door policy is still intact and applies to any NATO aspirant, including Ukraine if it so chooses.”

It won’t so choose because, before it did, Putin would invade at least the Eastern half of Ukraine, maybe all of it, and say to President Rubio, “Will you dare to push the Button?”

“Forged during the effort to bind postwar Europe together and to America, and proven through decades of the East-West conflict, NATO remains central to our security.”

Wrong. NATO was forged to keep the Soviet Union out of Western Europe. There ain’t no more Soviet Union. And isn’t it time we let the Europeans tend to their own business?

“A more robust response to Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine would reflect the same shared values that emerged victorious 70 years ago today.”

Hmmm. In 1944, the Soviet Union/Russia expelled Nazi Germany from Ukraine with Operation Bagratian. In 2014, Obama’s Neocon capo Victoria Nuland sparked a putsch against the legitimate, elected government of Ukraine, and put in charge a junta that even now includes neo-Nazis.

What Ukraine needs is peace through a return to neutrality, not Marco’s neocon madness.

In his biography, I see he never joined the military he seeks to send in harm’s way, not even the Reserves or the Guard, even though he could have done so until a year ago, when he was 42, the maximum enlistment age. He was an athlete in school.

Finally, in his speech Wednesday, Rubio also trashed Hillary for not completely embracing the new, secret trade flim-flam I wrote about here last week. But the blue-collar workers slammed by the secret deal are the ones the GOP needs to win Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

His Plan is for those laid off to join the military, get sent into combat by Commander-in-Chief Rubio, then march to battle shouting:

“If I die in a combat zone

“Box me up and ship me home!”