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Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

Marco Rubio’s water grab becomes the talk of Twitter and social media

Since the mid-1960s, when Lyn­don John­son was pres­i­dent, the par­ty not in con­trol of the White House has pro­vid­ed a for­mal response to the State of the Union Address for tele­vi­sion and radio net­works to air a few min­utes fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of the main event. Repub­li­cans car­ried on that tra­di­tion tonight, tap­ping Sen­a­tor Mar­co Rubio of Flori­da to deliv­er a speech crit­i­ciz­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s pol­i­cy direc­tions and putting words in his mouth.

Rubio’s speech — a mix of right wing boil­er­plate and invec­tive aimed at Pres­i­dent Oba­ma — were noth­ing we haven’t heard before. But while the con­tent of his speech may have been for­get­table, the deliv­ery was not. 

By the time Rubio uttered the words “God bless Amer­i­ca”, his speech had turned into grist for thou­sands upon thou­sands of con­ver­sa­tions on Twit­ter, Face­book, Tum­blr, and oth­er social networks.

Jami­son Fos­er was among the first to land a zinger:

Why is Mar­co Rubio speak­ing from inside a dollhouse?

— Jami­son Fos­er (@jamisonfoser) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

To which Antho­ny Clark replied:

@jamison­fos­er @ericboehlert Why is he speak­ing, period?

— Antho­ny Clark (@Anmclark) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

Oth­ers soon began to won­der why Rubio kept lick­ing his lips and wip­ing his face and fore­head. Appar­ent­ly, he was feel­ing a bit warm as well as thirsty, because about mid­way through the speech, he ducked to grab a half-pint sized water bot­tle — which he pro­ceed­ed to take a gulp from.

He then ducked down again to put the water bot­tle back where it had been, all while try­ing to main­tain eye con­tact with the cam­era. These awk­ward few sec­onds imme­di­ate­ly inspired a seem­ing­ly end­less series of jokes.

Rubio’s water grab was quick­ly immor­tal­ized in the form of an ani­mat­ed GIF.

Marco Rubio is thirsty....

Mar­co Rubio is thirsty.…

The GIF quick­ly began spread­ing like wild­fire. A #RubioFilms hash­tag was cre­at­ed short­ly there­after, and has received some fair­ly inge­nious snarky con­tri­bu­tions from pro­gres­sive activists. Here’s a sampling:

The Unbear­able Dry­ness of Being #RubioFilms

— doug pot­ter (@dpotr) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

#RubioFilms You can lead a Rubio to water, but drink­ing it is awkward

— Jan #Unite­Blue (@Jipso19) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

The Leg­end of Creepy Swal­low #RubioFilms #Gulp

— eclec­ticbrotha (@eclecticbrotha) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

#RubioFilms “The Water­boy” Movie Poster –Every­body Will Feel His Pain-#GOP #Stu­pid twitter.com/eqracer/status…

— Def Jeff (@eqracer) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

Gone with the Water Bot­tle #RubioFilms(Maybe a lot of truth in that)

— Just Hus­sein Jo (@desertcronenm) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

All The Poland Springs’ Men #RubioFilms

— 21st CENTURY | Bill (@Political_Bill) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

#RubioFilms There Will Be Water

— Eat the Rich (@RATM4) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

A Few Good Gulps #RubioFilms

— Robert Etchell (@Rudy671985) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

An Incon­ve­nient Gulp #RubioFilms #Unite­Blue

— BlizzyBe Hus­sein O (@BlizzyBe) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

Zero Dark Thirsty!!! #RubioFilms LMAO

— ARM (@adirado29) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

Mean­while, over at Demo­c­ra­t­ic Under­ground , they’ve got a Pho­to­shop con­test going. Fresh entries are welcome. 

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3 Comments

  1. I think its a non-issue hon­est­ly. If the demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty and its sup­port­ers want to con­tin­ue to be tak­en seri­ous­ly, they must rise above indulging in such pet­ty crit­i­cism. Oh no, the Sen­a­tor took a drink of water, film at 11!

    This is a non issue, it is not news­wor­thy, it is not even gos­sip wor­thy. Any­one who indulges in tweet­ing about this as some major mis­take needs to have their head exam­ined for chron­ic triv­ial pettiness.

    Do you think the aver­age Amer­i­can cares about this? Be hon­est now, if he were on the demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty’s side, would you even both­er to men­tion it? Of course not. Its a non issue. ‘

    Its time pol­i­tics be about the poli­cies and direc­tion of the coun­try, (of which you may have valid rea­sons to debate Sen­a­tor Rubio on an dis­agree with), but pick­ing on a man for tak­ing a drink of water in the mid­dle of a speech is well, hon­est­ly a form of pas­sive aggres­sive, nit picky, pet­ty group think bul­ly­ing and every one who has indulged in it it should be ashamed of your­selves. We are bet­ter then this.

    # by B. Houdini :: February 13th, 2013 at 5:25 AM
  2. Hey, the SNL writ­ers need some material.

    # by Mike Barer :: February 13th, 2013 at 1:02 PM
  3. Media is ridi­cul­ing Rubio for his water grab dis­play dur­ing his State of the Union response, but once the Repub­li­cans do tend to use “code lan­guage” in their pre­sen­ta­tions and ads, the inside jokes may be more meaningful.

    much like the invid­i­ous dis­crim­i­na­tion that has long become a rec­og­nized trade­mark of the GOP, the use of East­wood and the emp­ty chair requires peo­ple to deci­pher their code lan­guage to know what they are real­ly think­ing since they will not be forthright.

    using mis­di­rec­tion and dis­tort­ed log­ic is one of the only meth­ods of their com­mu­ni­ca­tion that alerts to the extent of their deviousness.

    # by Pat :: February 14th, 2013 at 12:16 AM

One Ping

  1. […] Mar­co Rubio’s water grab becomes the talk of Twit­ter and social media, as Sen. Mar­co Rubio’s mid-speech water gulp goes viral on Twit­ter. C.f. [Twit­ter Loves] Mar­co Rubio’s drink­ing prob­lem, and for con­text, More than 1.36 mil­lion peo­ple take to Twit­ter to talk State of the Union. […]

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