Posted on 05/08/2013 6:48:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Washington Post offered a splashy profile of freshman Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday, and the most surprising thing about it was a lack of venom. The reporter described "the self-assured, nonstop talker who won national debate championships as an undergraduate at Princeton."
Cruz "honed his reputation early in his career as a dazzling Supreme Court advocate" and now "has bashed into the national conversation," most notably in attacking establishment Republicans, who've called him and other young Senate conservatives "wacko birds."
This story, however, wasn't as surprising as James Carville's declaration on ABC's "This Week." He was typically blunt -- but in a wholly unexpected direction. "I think he is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I've seen in the last 30 years."
Carville accurately described the conservative view: "'If we only got someone who was articulate and was for what we were for, we would win elections. And we get these John McCains and these Mitt Romneys and these squishy guys that can't do anything.'" Carville added: "Well, there's one thing this guy is not -- he ain't squishy, not in the least."
The more typical take from the Left came from the same program, when former Gov. Bill Richardson insisted that the words Hispanic and conservatives cannot go together in the same sentence: "He's anti-immigration. Almost every Hispanic in the country wants to see immigration reform.
"I don't think he should be defined as a Hispanic. He's a politician from Texas. A conservative state." In the Richardson calculus, "pro-immigration" Marco Rubio is a Hispanic, while "anti-immigration" Ted Cruz is a politician from Texas.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is so tired of Cruz and his objections already that he has denounced him to his face as a "schoolyard bully." (To which Cruz shot back: "I wasn't aware we were in a schoolyard.")
Few people try to paint Ted Cruz as a lightweight -- except the lightweights. Haters at the Daily Kos blog have risibly jeered he couldn't be considered as qualified to be "pool boy." Chris Matthews bashed Cruz as "another one of these well-educated right wingers like Pat Robertson. It's like they flush out their high educations when they get out of school for political purposes."
David Letterman recently named Cruz as a "Stooge of the Night" for failing to vote Letterman's way on gun control. But the segment was so listless and unfunny it almost made you miss that other gray-haired liberal guy with the glasses -- remember that guy? -- who did that "Worst Person in the World" segment.
It's clear that Cruz's intelligence is marking him for media harassment. Former Newsweek Washington bureau chief Evan Thomas spoke for the journalistic masses: "You need to watch this guy, because there are a lot of demagogues out there, but not that many who are that smart. He is really, really smart, and that makes him potentially dangerous."
Liberals are far more comfortable with Republican leaders they can define as dimwits -- like that Harvard MBA, George W. Bush. They champion liberal politicians with mediocre college grades like Al Gore with honorifics, such as "The Thinking Man's Thinking Man." Ted Cruz upsets their liberals-are-smarter apple cart.
The media's Republicans In Name Only aren't fans, either. The New York Times columnist David Brooks -- the pseudo-conservative who fraudulently purports to represent the Right on both PBS and NPR -- declared that when you mention Cruz to other senators, "you just get titanic oceans of eye-rolling, because you're a freshman, you don't go in and take over hearings." Cruz is supposed to go along to get along, learn his place, "grow in office" and join the establishment. Brooks strangely added: "It doesn't help that he has a face that looks a little like Joe McCarthy actually."
Liberals have repeatedly linked Cruz to McCarthy after the New Yorker savaged Cruz because he said in a 2010 speech to a conservative crowd that Barack Obama "would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School" because "there were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than communists! There was one Republican. But there were 12 who would say they were Marxists."
The New Yorker's star witness against Cruz was "Republican" Harvard Law professor Charles Fried, who claimed he was one of four "out" Republicans on staff. Fried is an Obama supporter who recently donated $250 to elect liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Despite the media harassment, Ted Cruz is kicking tail and taking names. The Washington Post notes that his reaction to all the criticism can be summed up as "Lovin' it!" He is one member of Congress I'd like every other Republican to emulate. How crazy could that make the media elite?
I’m perfectly happy with Senator Cruz where he is right now. I’m not pushing for him to run for president.
If that ever happens, it will be for the courts to decide if he is eligible.
I am Texan who thinks Senator Cruz is what we need. Too bad our other Senator is not a Republican for Texas — only a Senator for the DC Rino’s.
But it is also critical, CRITICAL, that people face the truth that there’s a force who has been attacking the Constitution for many years and now they are coming to fruition under this current bunch. And that RINO, SQUISH Republicans have done nothing to stop them and have even helped them along the way.
We have to have the enemy plainly, clearly in our sights.
This is the enemy within America. That is destroying America from within.
It must be portrayed as a battle, which it is. Just to fault ill-informed, apathetic, low information voters for what is happening to Constitutional government wouldn’t be the best way to go. This condition of the masses is for sure enabling the enemy to succeed. But the nub of the threat is that there are forces in America that long ago set out to destroy what made America unique and great, like no other nation, ever.
People must meet the enemy.
They must choose up sides and fight.
And my point was about Ted Cruz being more able than the wonderful Sarah Palin, to explain this and argue this to the American people while himself running for the Oval Office.
Ted Cruz loves Sarah Palin. I believe she will have a very important role in this country, going forward. Just don’t know that it will turn out to be as a presidential candidate. If she were to become our candidate, of course I would support her. And along the way, in primaries, I would never try to harm her candidacy.
I’m just saying why I don’t come out and endorse her for president at this time.
I voted for Ted Cruz twice.
‘What difference does it make?’
From what I have read, the man is illegible.
Why is he intelligible?
We TEXANS are very proud of TED CRUZ and want to see him get several more just like him in the 2014 election.
Oops...eligible...lol.
I guess because he was born in Canada
Not a NBC, his dad was not a U.S. citizen at the time of Ted’s birth in CANADA. I know that Obama has the wherewithal to skirt the law with impunity but conservatives ought to remain principled.
If Dewhurst had won, he and Cornyn would be Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Interesting that Cornyn has veered from the middle since Cruz's victory. I think he smells a primary challenge.
Lol....intelligible...illegible....eligible....legible...so many spellings and meanings...so little time.
Need.more. Coffee..
“I believe that is probably why Texas sent him.”
That is EXACTLY why we sent TED CRUZ to the Senate.
However, our work is not finished. We need to find a like minded replacement for John Cornyn.
Then, it’s your turn.
You are a Rand supporter..so is drumming up a Birther issue on Cruz really being as principled as you seem to think others ought to be?
I’m of the opinion that, although Cruz has been impressive so far as a Senator, it’s a bit early to float him as a possible Presidential candidate. I’m also of the opinion that in his current role as a thorn in the side of both the RINOs and Harry Reid, he can continue to provide this country with a valuable service.
We need to primary-challenge Cornyn. He is up in 2014. There has got to be at least another with Cruz’s principles in Texas. If we could get that person to run I think Cornyn would go down just like Dewhurst did. Texas voters could make that happen.
Who I support does not change the fact that the man is ineligible. I mean, to deny that and point to who I am supporting is a mistake.
Boehner is the biggest problem we have for the foreseeable future for sure.
I think we should run Cruz no matter what after what the dems have done with Obama. We should be in their face and dare them to say one word.
If it was wrong for Obama to do it, why would we give one of our own a pass? BTW, I LIKE Ted Cruz.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.