Well, they finally got him.  Stopped him cold.  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had told the story of his parents fleeing Castro's Cuba over and over. And it's all a hoax.  The Washington Post is dancing in the end zone.  It's their biggest hit since Watergate.

Their intrepid investigative reporting team nailed the charismatic Cuban-American dead. Deader than Marley's Ghost. Deader than a doornail.

Or did they? The crux of the Post's exultant "gotcha" is this:  Rubio's parents emigrated to the U.S. in 1956 -- two and a half years before the bearded revolutionary lider rode to power in Havana. So, case closed. They weren't exiles after all. They were just two more of those huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Not so fast, Washington Post. Let's try another story:

It's Germany, June 1931. Your parents aren't Jewish; they're Lutherans. But they are outspokenly anti-Nazi. Hitler's brown shirts make a point of visiting your church. Your father, the pastor, preaches against Hitler. Your folks get a visit from the local Nazi party leader. It won't do to have you, Herr Pastor, talking against the New Order for Germany. 

"Tomorrow belongs to us," he says, "If we don't win the next election, we'll win the one after. And that one will be the last election in Germany for a thousand years. You'd better get in line. And it would be a good thing to enroll your sons in the Hitler Youth. It would be a healthy thing, if you vershtehe, Pastor."

Your father, somewhere, has read about the handwriting on the wall. That night, he makes a plan to take his family to Denmark and from there to the United States.

Now, was he a refugee from Hitler? Was he an exile? Are you and your brothers "children of exiles?" You always thought you were. You listened attentively to the family stories.  Other people, hearing of your experiences, certainly credited your version of events.

But let us say the Washington Post comes along.  And imagine their investigative reporter begins to dig. He learns that your parents left Germany a full year and a half before Hitler was installed as Chancellor.

Aha! You're an embellisher! You weren't refugees or exiles, after all. You could have stayed in Germany until January 30, 1933. Only if you left after that date could you qualify as true exiles.

That's about as ridiculous as the Post's latest pre-emptive attack. They tried the same kind of thing on Bob McDonnell when he was running for governor of Virginia. It didn't work then, either. McDonnell racked up a 59% victory in 2009.

The fact is people who live in dictatorships are more attuned to the political winds than those of us who think we still live in a free republic. They have to be.

On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro led a revolt against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Castro's attack on the Moncado Barracks in the city of Santiago de Cuba did not succeed.

Like Hitler's failed Munich beer hall putsch of 1923, it showed which way the regime would fall, when it fell. The Movimiento de 26 de Julio became the alternative to Batista and its rise was only a matter of time. For the last 60 years, July 26^th has been Communist Cuba's national holiday.

Marco Rubio's parents were far-seeing enough to know what was coming. But they weren't prescient enough to recognize that the free press in a presumably free country would look askance at their bold dash for freedom. They didn't have the foresight to leave detailed documents to explain: We see Castro coming from afar. We don't intend to wait for him to extinguish the hope of freedom for our family.

It would be fascinating to know why liberals are so interested in this story. After all, they are not interested in the 40,000 Cubans murdered by Fidel Castro. Whenever Robert Redford or playwright Arthur Miller visited Castro's imprisoned island, the Post never expressed indignation, or even concern.  Not even mild reproach.

Liberals certainly don't care about Orlando Zapata.  He's the Cuban dissident who died recently in a Castro prison, condemned for his outspoken defense of human rights.

How do we know liberals don't care about Communist oppression in Cuba? Well, we've had scores of presidential debates over the past 60 years. They frame all the questions for these debates.

We've had their probing and thoughtful questions on "deep dish" or "thin crust," "Leno or Letterman?" We've had the candidates themselves raise burning issues, like Fritz Mondale's immortal thrust, back in 1984: "Where's the beef?"

But we've never had a single question on Cuba. Ninety miles from Florida, six million Cubans live under grinding Communist tyranny. Hezb'allah is even said to be operating

training bases there. No questions from enquiring minds about this "Pearl of the Antilles."

Until now.  Until the Washington Post and the rest of the liberal pack sniffed a chance to preemptively sidetrack the career of Sen. Marco Rubio, an eloquent Cuban-American voice for freedom. How odd. But very typical. And they wonder why we don't like them very much.