Can I call ’em or what?
On Monday, I wrote regarding the question posed to Marco Rubio about when the Earth was created, The “crazy-ing” of Marco Rubio begins:
Marco Rubio is on the short list of Republican presidential contenders for 2016. Of course, that’s a long way away, so who knows if he remains on the short list.So Rubio’s a target even more so than in the past couple of years. Every question in every interview is a potential land mine. There can be no off-the-cuff remarks.The motus operandi will be to “crazy” him, the long-standing tactic used against Republicans and particularly people like Rubio who sprang from the Tea Party movement (something he doesn’t wear on his sleeve very much) or who occupy that most reviled place in the mainstream media, religious Christians.
In the past two days the crazy-ing has reached a fevered pitch, as noted by Mark Halperin (h/t Matt Lewis):
There’s one area where Democrats are really far ahead of Republicans right now. Science and technology, no. It’s doing this thing that Democrats failed to do in 2000, to stop George W. Bush, which is really, really early on using the left-wing Freak Show to define anyone who’s thinking of running for President, as quickly as possible, in negative terms on Twitter, on cable, on the Internet. They’re all over this Rubio thing because they want to control his image in a negative way and they did it this cycle too. They went after Romney early, it really hurt him. And they’re doing it now. And, you know, as a matter of just pure politics, it’s very effective because Rubio’s not full-time thinking about running for president. He’s out there dabbling but people on the Left will just be defining anyone who looks like they might be strong in four years.
As an aside, note how at the end they push Chris Christie. He will be the left-wing’s stalking horse, until they ruthlessly take him down once he is the last man standing. But I digress.
Daniel Engber at Slate notes that Rubio’s answer was almost precisely the answer Obama gave when running for President in 2008:
Q: Senator, if one of your daughters asked you—and maybe they already have—“Daddy, did god really create the world in 6 days?,” what would you say?A: What I’ve said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it … it may not be 24-hour days, and that’s what I believe. I know there’s always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don’t, and I think it’s a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I’m a part. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live—that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don’t presume to know.
It will not matter. There are two standards, one for “thoughtful” Democrats and one for “crazy” Republicans.
Remember what I said long ago about the failure of establishment Republicans to defend Sarah Palin against the crazy-ing — and indeed the piling on, We Just Witnessed The Media’s Test Run To Re-Elect Barack Obama:
Any Republican or conservative or Tea Party supporter who dumps on Palin in any way over the Tucson shooting or her defense of herself should just stop talking now.It does not matter whether you support Palin for President, whether you think she is electable, or even whether you like her. This is not about Palin, it is about the mainstream media’s desire to have Barack Obama re-elected at any cost and to take down any Republican candidate who stands in the way….If Palin is taken down politically over the Tucson shooting, there is not a single Republican candidate who can survive the coming onslaught.
And so it is with the attempt to crazy Marco Rubio.
I don’t know whether I would support him, it’s too early for that. But I do know that I will defend him against the crazy attempts to crazy him, because he is just the test case … for the media to elect a Democrat in 2016.
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