Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, Possible Vice Presidential Pick Fabricates Family History

When Fiction is Better for Politics Than the Truth, Go With the Fiction

The Dismal Political Economist has long felt that Florida Senator Marco Rubio was the most likely choice for the Vice President slot on the Republican ticket in 2012.  Mr. Rubio bring youth, Hispanic background and Florida to the ticket, something no other potential candidate can do.  He is also a compelling speaker, has a rags to riches story (although there are some questions about the source of the riches) and is a stealth Conservative. (A stealth Conservative is one who hides radical view to appear more mainstream).

Now it turns out that Mr. Rubio’s personal story, that his parents fled Cuba after Fidel Castro took over in order to enjoy the great freedom in the U. S. is just not true.  The Washington Post every now and then does some real reporting, (although see the end for the qualification of that) and this is what they found out.

The documents show that Rubio’s parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than 21 / 2 years before Castro’s forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year’s Day 1959.

So why does that matter?

The supposed flight of Rubio’s parents has been at the core of the young senator’s political identity, both before and after his stunning, tea-party-propelled victory in last year’s race for the U.S. Senate. Rubio — now considered a prospective 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee and a possible future presidential candidate —mentions his parents in the second sentence of the official biography on his Senate Web site. It says Mario and Oriales Rubio “came to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover.”

So what does one do when caught in what appears to be, to put it nicely, a bold faced lie. The heart of Conservative philosophy is taking responsibility for one’s actions.  Here is what Mr. Rubio does

In a brief interview Thursday, Rubio said his accounts of the family’s migration have been based on family lore. “I’m going off the oral history of my family,” he said. “All of these documents and passports are not things that I carried around with me.”

But it’s okay, because after they came to the U. S. his parents wanted to go back to Cuba but Mr. Castro was there and

“They were from Cuba. They wanted to live in Cuba again. They tried to live in Cuba again, and the reality of what it was made that impossible,” he said of his parents.

Which may explain things in Mr. Rubio’s world, but it just leaves the rest of us confused.  It sound as though Mr. Rubio’s defense in all of this will be ignorance, which  he may feel is better than fabrication, but it really does not matter.  In today’s Republican Party one is just as acceptable as the other.  Although he has not ever said so, Mr. Rubio's role models may be Spiro T. Agnew and Dan Quayle.

Oh and before anyone gets all gushy over the Washington Post, an oft criticized newspaper on this Forum, note the headline of their story

Marco Rubio’s compelling family story embellishes facts, documents show

And see if what you have just read is what you would call “embellishing” or outright . . . (fill in the blank, it's

not hard.)

Once again the WP shows it just does not want to offend Conservatives, and if good journalism requires

 doing that, well good journalism will just have to take second place.