Rubio and Scott’s shameless votes to acquit Trump make this a shameful Presidents Day | Editorial

the Miami Herald Editorial Board

Update: This editorial has been corrected to reflect that Abraham Lincoln did not own slaves.

On this holiday on which Americans pay tribute to two presidents who loom large in the creation — and then the continued unity — of this nation, it’s a disgrace that Florida’s representatives in the U.S. Senate have, for more than four years, continually, slavishly, backed a president who actively sought to tear it apart.

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were not perfect men — Washington enslaved people, after all, and endorsed Congressional efforts to protect that repulsive institution. Lincoln abhorred slavery, but was less resolute on equal rights for Blacks.

Still, Washington was a warrior for this nation’s independence from just the kind of autocratic rule that Donald Trump promulgated. He rode herd over the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which established the U.S. Constitution — the same enduring document that almost didn’t survive Trump’s trampling in his pursuit to stay in power even if it meant a House speaker or vice president had to be killed.

Lincoln died while fighting the Confederacy’s insurrection, when it fired on Fort Sumter, and the “anarchy” of Southern states’ secession.

It was no real surprise that Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott voted to acquit Trump on Feb. 13 after his impeachment trial in the Senate. It’s just a disappointment that these two men who never fail to launch, rightly, full-throated rants — against the anti-democratic regimes in Cuba and Venezuela — expressed little but anger that their colleagues sought to avoid the same sorry fate in this country.

They have shown us, to quote another towering American, the content of their character. And there’s something missing.

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