Ted Cruz Won’t Be Denied

The New York Times ^ | February 6, 2016 | Frank Bruni

[2ndDivisionVet]

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- ANOTHER Ted Cruz rally, another Ted Cruz rant about the media's failure to give him his due. I endured one in the tiny town of Weare, N.H., on Thursday afternoon and had two thoughts.

The first was that I'd seldom heard a voice as ripe with self-regard -- as juicy with it -- as his. He's pomposity's plum tomato.

The second thought was that he's right.

We've sold him short. We continue to underestimate him. He's even craftier than we appreciated. He's more devious than we realized.

And he has a better chance to win the Republican nomination than we want to admit, because he's not just a preternaturally slick political animal. He's an uncommonly lucky one.

He's getting huge, unintended breaks from Republican elders and rivals who mostly detest him and rightly believe that he'd lead the party to ruin in a general election but are distracted by other quarry -- Donald Trump, Marco Rubio -- and are letting him slither by.

At first Trump was their obsession. The self-appointed caretakers of conservatism at National Review went so far as to pack the sum of their energies and anxieties into an entire issue devoted to taking down Trump, even though their readers aren't his supporters and their exertions only underscored his pitch that he's not part of the system....

[Cboldt]

I linked to the entire transcript previously ... I think this is the part you wanted me to fetch for you.

MUIR: Martha, thank you. We're just going to -- we're going to stay on ISIS here and the war on terror, because as you know, there's been a debate in this country about how to deal with the enemy and about enhanced interrogation techniques ever since 9/11.

So Senator Cruz, you have said, quote, "torture is wrong, unambiguously, period. Civilized nations do not engage in torture." Some of the other candidates say they don't think waterboarding is torture. Mr. Trump has said, I would bring it back. Senator Cruz, is waterboarding torture?

CRUZ: Well, under the definition of torture, no, it's not. Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems, so under the definition of torture, it is not. It is enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.

[Jane Long]

Here’s the vid with first part of his answer....that includes the part before the McCain mention...note the awkward pause before the McCain part. (What is he doing? Gathering (someones) thoughts? LOL :)

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/ted-cruz-donald-trump-advocate-bringing-back-waterboarding-36764410

Not sure why it was left out of the transcript you have.