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If anyone thought that Jon Stewart's take down of Sen. Marco Rubio's response to President Obama's state of the union address was brutal, you ain't seen nothing yet if you missed Stephen Colbert that same evening. Colbert took a whack at those who put the pressure on Rubio in the first place, like Karl Rove and Sean Hannity, who might have been responsible for his nervousness because of the fact that they were calling him their new "rising star."

COLBERT: No pressure Marco. You're just the egg from which the new Republican party will be born, so we should put all of our egg into one basket, then count our chicken before it hatches. And while we're at it, why don't we make it a hand basket and make sure it's headed some place really warm.

Colbert proceeded to show his viewers a mash up of Rubio's flop sweat wiping, lip smacking and then reaching for his bottle of water and tried to give Rubio some comfort after what happened.

COLBERT: Don't worry Sen. Rubio, nobody noticed... that you gave a speech.

Colbert continued showing the talking heads on Fox making excuses for Rubio and with trying to show some empathy for what he was going through. I'll just let everyone watch the clip instead of spoiling it, but it was laugh out loud funny.

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I have to say, I completely agree with Chris Matthews here after watching Sen. Marco Rubio's rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union speech tonight. During MSNBC's coverage immediately following his speech, with Rachel Maddow giving a brief overview of some of what was said and her calling it a “claws out, kind of aggressive speech,” her colleague Chris Matthews was not so kind.

MATTHEWS: I thought it was tinker toys. I thought it was primitive, that it was something you'd hear on a high school debating team. First of all, he went after government as some kind of evil, then he admitted that he had gone to school on student loans. Well, I went to school on student loans, my dad went to school on the G.I. Bill. Most of us have benefited from good government. Government's worked for us. I got in the Peace Corps, changed my life. You know, I am very pro-government and he admitted he was, too.

He says "I love Medicare because of how it takes care of my mother. I took care of my father with dignity. He said I went the student loan route, I benefited from it. I got my education." Where was the consistency here? I didn't get it. He was saying he was a product of solid government and positive programs, and then he just trashed the whole thing. And then he played this victim game that everybody seems to play today.

What's the Republicans' victims. They're paying one in six dollars now, we've got six percent of GDP going to revenues. We're spending twenty five percent. Who's being over-taxed? I mean, what are they talking about?

It was almost like a YAFer speech, Young Americans for Freedom speech in the 1950's. There was no originality to it. It was basic. Again, it was tinker toys. It was a kid's presentation of a philosophy reduced to maybe the ninth grade level. I'm sorry, but that's what it was.

My thoughts were that it sounded like more Ayn Rand worship type of claptrap which is, "I've got mine and the hell with everyone else. I got my help with student loans, but the hell with the rest of you. My parents are benefiting from Medicare and we're not going to harm them, but if you're in your forties, look out because you're going to have to suck it up and have your benefits cut." As Matthews rightfully noted, there was just a ton of inconsistency and hypocrisy laced through the entire speech.

We can have a bit of fun with the water bottle moment, but ultimately I think the criticism as we saw here and the hypocrisy we've seen constantly from the Republicans with their policies and how this speech was just another example of that is what is going to matter more in the long run.

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I think Sen. Rubio has got some work to do before he's ready for prime time: Rubio Takes Awkward Water Break At State Of The Union Speech:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) appeared to be having some trouble delivering the GOP rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night, when he awkwardly reached for a sip of water midway through his speech.

via Buzzfeed

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Republicans apparently are counting on the American public to have short memories, or to not be aware of who Mitch Daniels is and what policies he's endorsed since they decided to tap him to give the response to President Obama's State of the Union Address this Tuesday evening.

Daniels attacked the President for not turning the economy around quickly enough, ignoring the fact that he's personally responsible for a good deal of the debt and deficit we're dealing with now during his time working in the Bush administration.

From Steve Benen back in February of last year -- The Record Mitch Daniels Doesn't Want to Talk About:

A couple of days ago, David Brooks praised Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) for his record of fiscal responsibility. That record, in Brooks' vision, starts in 2004 when Daniels was elected to statewide office.

But there's also that inconvenient period in which Daniels was Bush's budget director, and the U.S. government began the most fiscally irresponsible period in American history. [...]

It's true that Daniels, as Bush's budget director, was helping shape the books during an economic downturn, but I seem to recall Republicans concluding that these details are irrelevant -- Obama inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, but as far as the GOP is concerned, that's not a good excuse for large deficits.

For that matter, Daniels is correct that his tenure also included 9/11 and the launch of two wars, but every president in American history raised taxes to help pay for previous U.S. wars, to prevent deficits from spiraling out of control. Bush, with Daniels' blessing, approved two massive tax cuts that ultimately added $5 trillion to the debt in just eight years.

It's that same debt that Daniels believes will destroy the country. Funny, he didn't think that way when he was directly responsible for making the problem worse.

Daniels also claimed during this speech that it's his party that wants to "save" our social safety nets, but this is the same man who called Social Security "a Ponzi scheme." And as Media Matters Political Correction posted last May -- GOP "Savior" Mitch Daniels Wants To Voucherize Medicare, Slash Social Security Benefits.

Daniels also claimed his party is concerned about restoring "hope and upward mobility and greater equality" for Americans, but he's been busy pushing "right to work" legislation through his state that would have the opposite effect.

The fact that this man is one of the people that the Republicans and the beltway Villagers in the media are still touting as some sort of "savior" for the Republican Party just speaks to how extremely weak their field of candidates are right now.

I'm sure there will be a lot more fact checking of this speech as people have time and pointing out the lies by Daniels that were made here and his utter hypocrisy, which it deserves. I'll just leave it there for now with the text of the speech below the fold for anyone that would like to weigh in further at this point.

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