I love the State of the Union address. I love the kabuki dance dictating who claps, who stands up and when, who scowls at the floor. I love guessing which cabinet member will stay behind to govern in case the unspeakable happens. I adore the knock on the door of the House of Representatives. Last night did not disappoint, and there were several great moments—some of them theatrical, some of them substantive.
But my absolute favorite moment of the night was Marco Rubio’s boarding house reach for a gulp of water during his rebuttal speech. For those of you that missed it, his speech was going along at a fair clip. He was standing in front of a patriotic—but very fake looking—background (you know, flag, window overlooking the Capitol); making eye contact with the camera; arguing his case for free enterprise and individual achievement. In short, he was doing a pretty nice, if predictable job. But then, about three-quarters of the way through the speech, he leaned down, reached off camera, and took a big gulp of water from a plastic water bottle. Then, he went on.
The twitter pouncers went nuts. They could not believe their luck to have such a moment. The rest of the evening was filled with jokes like “Watergate” and “parched conservative.” A fake twitter account featuring Senator Rubio’s water bottle was live in five minutes or less. Senator Rubio himself tweeted a picture of the empty water bottle within moments of finishing the speech.
Even this morning, the headlines are still tittering over the untimely gulp of water: “Marco Rubio Water Bottle Upstages his Message,””Marco Rubio’s ‘Water Bottle-Gate’ Moment,” and on and on.
I personally loved it. And not for comic reasons, though some of those twitter hashtags were pretty funny. I actually loved it because we saw something happen that was real, that was human. We saw raw thirst—and not metaphorical thirst—trump the seemingly all-powerful political machinery. We are so used to all of our civic and political experiences being seamlessly produced that we were shocked—shocked!—to see a United States Senator take a drink of water on camera.
For a minute, Senator Rubio was not an over-handled, poll-tested hologram, He was just a guy who needed a drink of water, and he reached over and grabbed it. I’ve never liked him better. And even more than that, I was reminded that in fact we are just a nation of human beings—with bodies—doing our best to govern ourselves. I was reminded that we are a nation governed by the people, by people. And I for one was glad to bear witness .
