All of a sudden and out of the blue, I found myself today respecting and agreeing with Senator Marco Rubio. I can’t believe it, but there it is. He manned up, stood tall, told it straight, no quarter.

From David E. Sanger and Matt Flegenheimer‘s N.Y. Times story about Rubio’s interrogation of former Exxon CEO and would-be Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: “One especially skeptical Republican was Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, whose vote on the Foreign Relations Committee might well decide the fate of Mr. Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon.

“In one contentious exchange with Mr. Rubio, who ran against President-elect Donald J. Trump last year for the Republican nomination, Mr. Tillerson rebuffed an effort to get him to describe Mr. Putin as a war criminal for ordering the bombing of civilians in Chechnya. ‘I would not use that term,’ he said.

“By the end of the day, Mr. Rubio would not commit to supporting Mr. Tillerson, saying he was ‘prepared to do what’s right,’ even if it meant siding with Democrats, which would most likely result in a 11-to-10 committee vote against the nomination. Even so, the committee could still send it to the full Senate, where Mr. Tillerson’s chances would be tenuous.”