The New York Times made it clear to us last month with hilarious results: Marco Rubio was terrible with money. He wasn’t earning enough and couldn’t manage what little he had very well. He overextended his limited income with extravagant purchases of fishing boats and handsome brick driveways in front of his home which had windows too large for polite society.

Well, that story hit the political scene like a bag of wet mice smacking onto the pavement. But now comes round two! The Washington Post counters with an argument that Rubio quickly translated his “political star power” into a soaring personal income.

About a year and a half after taking his seat in Florida’s part-time legislature, Rubio got a financial boost, accepting a new job at the Miami law firm of Becker & Poliakoff for $93,000 a year. Although Rubio was a lawyer by training, his colleagues quickly recognized the advantage of having a charismatic, high-energy politician in the office.

“It was as simple as saying, ‘Marco, who should I call in this place about this issue?’ ” recalled Perry Adair, a real estate lawyer in charge of the firm’s Miami office, where Rubio worked from 2001 to 2004. “Marco knew the staff everywhere. He had been in politics all his life.”

During nine years in Tallahassee, as Rubio rose in prominence and ascended to the state House speakership, he became increasingly well-compensated as he walked a narrow line between his work as a lawmaker and an employee of outside firms with interests before the state government.

So Rubio (a lawyer) took a job (as a lawyer) working at a firm (that would be a, er… law firm) in addition to working his part-time job in the state legislature. And by virtue of doing that he managed to increase his income by 2008 to a level which placed him… (hang on to your hats for this actual quote from the WaPo) … in the top 1 percent of American earners.

He’s a one percenter!

I kid… I kid. The juxtaposition of the Rubio coverage from the two largest papers in the nation is amusing, but at least I’ll give the Washington Post credit for finding some smoke. Whether or not there will be any fire underneath remains to be seen. As I noted above, having a lawyer take a job at a law firm to support himself is nothing unusual in and of itself, particularly when you consider that his salary from the state as a legislator was $26K. Also, a lawyer being hired at an established firm and receiving $93K is, if anything, a bit on the low side. Later he went on to be picked up at a different law and lobbying firm for the far more enviable salary of $300K, but that’s also far from being unique.

The real question is what sort of lobbying and (possibly) influence peddling was taking place, and that’s where the smoke comes in. If the WaPo had found anything solid already we’d be seeing it this morning, but I’m sure there are people digging through the files and requesting documents even now. Working as an attorney – and especially a lobbyist – while simultaneously holding elective office isn’t a de facto finding of anything wrong going on, but you’re clearly walking a tightrope. Reporters will be looking to see if there were people with business before the state, either directly in the sphere of Rubio’s control or within his political reach, who were also clients of the firm. If there were and they wound up achieving a desirable result after shuffling cash into Rubio’s firm, then he’s going to have a problem. If he managed to keep those two worlds entirely separate then this will wind up being yet another nothingburger.

But with all that said, the timing of the article is unfortunate in terms of reporting. If the liberal, late night comics had any real interest in going after Democrats and their media allies with the same zeal they reserve for conservatives, the pairing of these two stories would be fodder for snarky jokes for months to come.