Cheap shots: Ted Cruz faces his kidnapped member

Not really, it's mostly about Rubio. But the loved member was my favorite moment in the debate.

"Repetition. Repetition. Repetition." Image via La Generalista.

Talking about Rubio's "25-second speeches" put me in mind of an earworm he's been repeating in this annoying way for the past three weeks:

(1) Rubio in the January 14 debate:

She wouldn’t just be a disaster. Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being Commander-in-Chief of the United States. Someone who cannot handle intelligence information appropriately cannot be Commander-in-Chief and someone who lies to the families of those four victims in Benghazi cannot be President of the United States.

For pity's sake, please, just one more time:

• Clinton used private email, as did secretaries of state Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and John Kerry, whether to avoid the bureaucratic annoyances of the State Department servers or indeed for security (since hackers almost certainly knew the State Department servers existed) or whatever reason, contrary to departmental policy, where a couple of the tens of thousands of emails she received contained information that ended up, some years later, getting classified; this does not constitute being "unable to handle intelligence information appropriately". Being unable to handle intelligence information appropriately means, for instance, giving already classified information to your girlfriend to use in the hagiography she is writing about you.
• The persnickety Glenn Kessler, for whom no slimy allegation is every entirely false, has gone over the discussions between Clinton and the Benghazi victims' family members with more detail than I would have thought possible and concluded that

  Clinton says that in speaking with the families, she did not blame the Benghazi attacks on the video. Most participants we interviewed (four out of six) back up her version, saying they do not recall her mentioning a video.... we cannot come to a resolution that would be beyond dispute. Readers will have to come to their own conclusions based on the evidence we have assembled.

  If Rubio has some additional information he's welcome to say so, but if he doesn't then he should not be making categorical assertions of something that certainly seems more unlikely than not.
• The Constitution is very clear about the qualifications of the commander-in-chief (35 years old, natural-born citizen). If you mean to say she is unqualified, go ahead, but who gave you the authority to disqualify her?

(1a)

Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander in-chief. Get the sticker → https://t.co/0c3x6rnE9u #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/59SK9LNIwm

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 18, 2016

He's raising money off it.

(2) Ad, January 20:

"Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander-in-chief of the United States," Rubio is shown saying in the 30-second spot. "Someone who cannot handle intelligence information appropriately cannot be commander-in-chief. And someone who lies to the families of those four victims of Benghazi can never be President of the United States."

(3) Debate, January 28:

And Hilary Clinton is disqualified from being the commander in chief of the United States. In fact, one of her first acts as president may very well be to pardon herself. And Hillary Clinton lied to those four brave Americans who lost their life in Benghazi. And anybody who lies to the families of Americans who have died in the service of this country can never be commander in chief of the United States."

She lied to the dead guys themselves?

(3a) Hewy Hewitt (January 31):

Hillary Clinton is, to quote Marco Rubio from the last two GOP debates, disqualified from being president.

Of course to Hewitt, as we learned last night, the repetition is a feature not a bug:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: One question: Is there a logic to doing it four times in a row? Why did he do it four times in a row?

HEWITT: Because he is talking to me. he is talking to Rpublicans about Barack Obama...

(4) And, speaking of last night, Debate, February 6:

But we're going to bring this party together and we are going to defeat Hillary Clinton, because she is unqualified to be the president of the United States of America. She put classified information on her computer because she thinks she's above the law and anyone who lies to the families of people who have lost their loved ones in the service of our country like she did in Benghazi, can never be the commander-in-chief of the United States of America.

(4) Famed crack high school debater Ted Cruz:

Well, look, I recognize it is an agonizing experience when anyone is facing a loved -- loved member who's been kidnapped. 

Nah, he really said that.

Bonus:

If Marco Rubio wants to have all his debate answers fully written out in advance, OK, but he needs to hire a better editor.

And let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing. Barack Obama is undertaking a systematic effort to change this country, to make America more like the rest of the world. That's why he passed Obamacare and the stimulus and Dodd-Frank and the deal with Iran. It is a systematic effort to change America. 

[Followed, a few minutes later, by] But I would add this. Let's dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is trying to change this country. He wants America to become more like the rest of the world. We don't want to be like the rest of the world, we want to be the United States of America. 

[And shortly thereafter, rattled by Christie [Here's the bottom line. This notion that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing is just not true. He knows exactly what he's doing.... We have to understand what we're going through here. We are not facing a president that doesn't know what he's doing. He knows what he is doing. That's why he's done the things he's done. (Washington Post transcript)

For starters, what kind of English is "dispel with"? That's just wrong, people. And two wrongs don't make it a right, why not try something different the next time? And when you emphasize how that sinister villain Barack Obama knows exactly what he's doing, you may be calling a little more attention than you want to the fact that you don't know exactly what you're doing. Indeed you seem to have no idea.