Marco Rubio seems to have been invented in a laboratory as part of an experiment to create the perfect Republican vice-presidential candidate. Former Bushie and torture enthusiast Marc Thiessen argues that there is some underground whispering campaign at work designed to deny Rubio his rightful place. The thing is, Thiessen is actually persuasive:
In recent months, a whispering campaign has spread in Washington suggesting that Rubio may look good on paper, but he cannot “pass vet” for the vice-presidential nomination. The whispers became more audible last October following a hit piece by Washington Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia, who accused Rubio of deliberately “embellishing” his family history by saying that his parents arrived in the United States after Castro took power when they, in fact, arrived during the Batista years. (I pointed out at the time that the story offered zero evidence that Rubio intentionally misled anyone). …
Even in ranking Rubio first on his vice-presidential list, The Post’s Chris Cillizza writes, “We hear whispers that his time in the state legislature could be mined by a good opposition researcher.” And this month, the National Journal downgraded Rubio’s position on its vice-presidential power rankings because, it claimed, Rubio “skated into office without much of his past being vetted in the media.”
But who is behind this? Thiessen doesn’t venture a guess. Maybe he needs to employ more stringent measures to get people to talk.
