As our friend Mollie Hemingway explains in The Federalist, Marco Rubio mopped the floor with Chris Cuomo on CNN Friday morning, finally establishing that a very young human embryo, while not self-sustaining or visibly human, is in fact human life: It is not dead, so it has to be living, and it’s not a kitten or puppy, so human is what it is. But while it was a smack down it was in one sense a missed opportunity, as Rubio, who is usually quick at this sort of allusion, failed to bring up one big thing: Planned Parenthood and the videos, God’s gift this year to the Republican party, which, by any Republican anywhere, should not go unmentioned again.
Since Cuomo was trying to present him as an extremist (due to his views on exceptions for rape), Rubio might have added his views were less so than the “crunchy” abortions discussed on the tapes, and the “crushing” techniques described in process, which Hillary
Clinton has not said she objects to, and is therefore assumed to support. He could have asked Cuomo if CBS intended to grill Mrs. Clinton on these matters, and if Cuomo refused to give him an answer, he could have asked Cuomo why. In fact, every time any Republican anywhere is grilled on abortion, he should find a way to work Planned Parenthood and its fetal parts into the story, and ask if the reporters think this is a good thing to be doing, and one that should have our support.
Since the press is refusing to mention the tapes, this a golden opportunity to bring them and their contents before a mass audience, and has no downside whatever: If the press continues to try to use this issue against the Republicans, it opens the door to a description of what it wants to keep secret. Or, if it gets burned too often by too many people, it may stop asking these questions at all.
