Political predictions are a tricky business.
For example, in our 2018 endorsement of Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate in Florida, we noted Republican candidate Rick Scott's drift toward the political center as governor but called it an election season head-fake that wouldn't last if he got elected.
We wrote: "Floridians are not going to get that kind of centrist, bipartisan behavior from Rick Scott. If anything, Scott will further the political tribalism that's dividing this country, to the peril of us all. He's the type who'll do Trump's bidding and protect the president from accountability, regardless of what Special Counsel Robert Mueller or anyone else finds."
Fact check one year later: Correct.
Scott's true colors were flying on Wednesday after the release of a memo summarizing a July telephone conversation between Trump and Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
We found the conversation, in which Trump asks a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden and his son, to be a damning _ but characteristic _ abuse of power.
That said, we can accept that people of good faith might feel less certainty and, while concerned about the content, wish to reserve judgment until more is known.
Not the junior senator from Florida, who went full partisan.
Florida Politics reported that Scott, when asked on Fox News Radio if he found the exchange troubling, reached deep into his memory and dug up an old beef with the Obama administration. Scott recalled that, because he refused to accept billions from the feds to expand Medicaid, the administration threatened to withhold federal money that compensates health care providers for treating uninsured or underinsured patients.
To summarize, Scott changed the subject from Trump seeking political favors through Ukraine's president to President Obama, who's been out of office for almost three years. Thanks, Obama.
Scott kept it coming on Thursday after the release of a whistleblower complaint that further details the Trump administration's efforts to get a political boost from the Ukraine.
"Democrats are on a mission to impeach @POTUS. It's their entire legislative agenda. They lost the 2016 election & can't get over it," Scott tweeted after the complaint became public.
Actually, Democrats have passed a number of bills since taking a majority in the U.S. House, including bipartisan measures approved earlier this month that would restrict oil drilling off Florida's coasts. Scott may not have noticed because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won't allow a Senate vote on most of the House's bills.
In a statement Wednesday Scott made a brief nod in the direction of getting more facts about the Ukrainian affair but quickly pivoted back to protecting Trump from those nosy Democrats. Facts, schmacts.
Florida's other senator, Marco Rubio, has had little to say beyond criticizing Democrats for their rush to impeach before all the facts are known.
At the same time, Rubio declared _ before all the facts are known _ that the president hasn't done anything to warrant impeachment. Rubio's playing the role of the weary cop who tells the crowd, "Move along, nothing to see here."
Oh, for Florida to have Republican senators who at least recognize the gravity of what's unfolding, and the uncertainty about where it might lead and what it might mean to the nation.
Senators like Utah's Mitt Romney and Nebraska's Ben Sasse, who seem to be resisting the impulse to rally behind the president even if he shot someone on 5th Avenue. They appear genuinely concerned with knowing more and reserving judgment.
The paramount priority of Florida's senators must not be protecting the president but instead protecting the office of the president from abuse.
In an editorial last month, we implored Scott and Rubio to consider the legacy of Ed Gurney, the senator from Florida who defended Richard Nixon until the very end, and earned a place in history as the disgraced president's chief Senate bootlicker.
They're continuing down that path today, seemingly mindless not just of their own legacies but of the nation's well-being.
