How Marco Rubio rescued his awkward water break moment

last updated 8 January 2015

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the 41-year-old Cuban-American being billed as the potential savior of the Republican Party, gave a measured, conservative response to President Obama's State of the Union address. His official GOP rebuttal was a Reagan-infused paean to faith, free markets, and small government. But while some conservatives were very impressed with Rubio's performance, the consensus largely validates Jeb Golinkin's warning to Rubio: "Call whomever it is you call about these things, say you have the flu, and stay home."

Rubio didn't look like a cartoonish sitcom character (see Gov. Bobby Jindal, 2009), but about halfway into his televised speech, he apparently got very thirsty. It looked like this:

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Twitter, being Twitter, couldn't talk about anything else. First there was shock at Rubio's awkward grab for his bottle of water:

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Then amusement:

Then came sympathy:

And blaming the victim:

And finally, the the self-referential self-loathing of a group of media types realizing they are all obsessing, en masse, about a single, goofy moment:

Some Rubio supporters tried to defuse the situation:

But it was Rubio himself (or perhaps his social media team) that turned a potentially embarrassing meme into a shared joke, maybe even a political plus:

And that, politicians, is how it's done:

Meme closed.

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.