I don’t know about you, but I’m lighting candles for the junior senator from Florida to be Mitt Romney’s choice for his vice presidential running mate. He’s the darling of tea partiers throughout the land (you remember how well that worked out last time) and his selection would allow me the great pleasure of simply calling out “Marco!” to every one of my callers and waiting for the appropriate response: “Rubio!” It’s a children’s game for adults. So what if he didn’t discover China?
The announcement that he is, indeed, on Mittens’ short list of possible selections warms my heart. (I’d say it sends a thrill up my leg, but Chris Matthews owns that line.) The problem, of course, is that Rubio still has to pass the vetting process.
Then again, maybe Romney, for whom contradictions are like breathing, doesn’t care that there are a few, well, inconsistencies in the touching fairy tale that is the Marco Rubio story.
As recently as last year, Rubio claimed in his official biography that his parents fled Cuba following Castro’s takeover in 1959. Unfortunately for Marco, his parents actually left Cuba three years earlier, in 1956. Maybe they were psychic. But the inconvenient truth is that Rubio polished his anti-Communist image by lying. He later claimed that he was only repeating family lore, which means that his defense essentially boils down to “I come from a long line of liars.” Classy move, Senator — throw your parents under the Romney campaign bus while you’re jumping on it.
Perhaps it won’t matter. After all, the Palin precedent proves that dishonesty is always the last refuge of Republican scoundrels. Good luck, Senator! I’m rooting for you!
Marco! Rubio!!!
(Photo: Getty Images)
