And so, at long last, American media reaches peak moron. I’m just thankful that Newsbusters was there to capture it. They’ve waited years for this moment and now, finally, it’s here. Cherish it, guys.

CNN’s excuse? Satire, of course. The sort of satire for which CNN is world renowned.

“We are joking, it was a tease,” CNN Public Relations wrote to POLITICO, via Twitter.

“It was simply a tease (posing a question) leading up to a segment with our political contributors—when Wolf [Blitzer] specifically said no one thinks this will be a career ender,” CNN spokesperson Edie Emery later told POLITICO via email.

Judge for yourself whether Blitz was playing for laughs. I confess, as I was writing this post this morning, I thought maybe I was being the teensiest bit unfair in indicting the media for peeing themselves over Rubio’s quick-sip. Sure, they had devoted thousands of times more coverage to it than it deserved, but they weren’t really “taking it seriously.” Then I saw the AP’s article, and then I saw this. Vindication.

Rubio’s still having fun with it too:

Picked up over 13,000 new followers on #twitter since last night! Im going to start drinking #water in the middle of all of my speeches!

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 13, 2013

Exit question: Is this headline set the media’s version of “cleverness” or just a sly way to impugn him to really, really low-information voters?