Posted on 02/19/2014 4:18:55 PM PST by servo1969
A leading tea party intellectual has turned against the tea party movement’s favorite senator.
Economist Thomas Sowell, who has long been revered among conservatives, has slammed Sen. Ted Cruz in his last two columns, accusing the Texas Republican of being self-serving and comparing him to President Obama.
“Freshman Senator Ted Cruz says many things that need to be said and says them well,” Sowell wrote in his syndicated column Tuesday, before going on to compare Cruz to President Obama. “Moreover, some of these things are what many, if not most, Americans believe wholeheartedly. Yet we need to remember that the same was true of another freshman Senator, just a relatively few years ago, who parlayed his ability to say things that resonated with the voters into two terms in the White House.”
Sowell continued, suggesting Cruz is only looking out for himself.
“Senator Ted Cruz has not yet reached the point where he can make policy, rather than just make political trouble,” Sowell wrote. “But there are already disquieting signs that he is looking out for Ted Cruz — even if that sets back the causes he claims to be serving.”
Sowell seems to have been most recently irked by Cruz’s actions surrounding the Senate vote to increase the debt ceiling. Cruz threatened to filibuster, forcing several Republicans to either vote for cloture or force a fight over the debt ceiling increase. Republican leaders were seeking to avoid such a politically-risky fight and another possible government shutdown in order to focus on the failures of Obamacare heading in to the 2014 midterm elections.
“Senator Cruz’s filibuster last year got the Republicans blamed for shutting down the government — and his threatened filibuster this year forced several Republican Senators to jeopardize their own reelection prospects by voting to impose cloture, to prevent Cruz from repeating his self-serving grandstand play of last year,” Sowell wrote in his Wednesday column. “The Republicans need every vote they can get in the Senate — plus additional votes by defeating some Democrats who are running for the Senate this fall. It can be a very close call. Jeopardizing the reelection of current Republican Senators is an act of utter irresponsibility, a high risk with zero benefits to anyone except Ted Cruz — and the Democrats.”
In his Wednesday column, Sowell also lashed out against the so-called Republican establishment.
“However unjustified Senator Cruz’s actions, the very fact that a freshman Senator can so quickly gain so many supporters, with so much enthusiasm, ought to be a loud warning to the Republican establishment that they have long been a huge disappointment to a wide range of Republican voters and supporters,” he wrote.
If you think the compromises of the Constitution were “tiny”
then your knowledge of that document’s history could fit up a hog’s
behind. What the Founding Fathers were unified about was that
they were no longer going to be a part of Britain. Much of everything
else was up in the air. Post Revolutionary War there were those who
even wanted G Washington to serve as king of the US.
As to Sowell and anybody else, it is entirely possible to despise
Cruz and be just as conservative as anybody. No one person
corners the market on conservatism. Fall in love with a politician
and be ready for heartbreak. And, yes there are a few posters
who are ready to throw Sowell under the bus on this thread.
You are dodging the issue yet again. How do the minor-by-comparison compromises in the US Constitution translate to a countenancing of what the GOP establishment is doing with liberals today, which is not really compromise but collaboration?
It seems you do not understand the USA, nor appear to ascribe exceptionalism to it. Also, this relativistic approach to US conservatism implies a strong opposition to it rather than an embrace, because it is not a contest between personalities like liberalism is. The Founders were about far more than breaking with Britain; slogans like “No king but King Jesus” say more than they appear on the surface, just for one example.
You got butt-hurt because I agreed with a poster who was
critical of some strident posters who were critiical of Sowell.
YOU invoked the Founding Fathers and commenced to talking
out your ass including mumbo-jumbo about driving on the left
or right and the evolving definition of “compromise”. You
are over your head, nonsensical and becoming quite the bore.
Ah OK, invective. Well, thanks for reconfirming where you stand. When it comes to conservatism, it is about ideology whether you like it or not; it certainly is not about persons. Sowell will learn that too late, after jumping on the GOP-e bandwagon and trashing the Tea Party for no good reason.
I gave you a clue. I told you to go after them. Name the elite
RINO GOPs, isolate them, deal with them. All I hear about is
the nameless, faceless bunch that cuts deals with the ‘Rats.
Well, Tea Party legislators need to call the phonys out or shut
the F up and work with them to push out the ‘Rats.
Again, you invoke the Founding Fathers and you apparently know
less than half the story. And for you to question my understanding
of the US and the exceptional that goes along is contemptable.
You are absurd.
Wish Sowell had the same passion to slam McConnell and Boehner’s capitualation to the punk POTUS.
Well, with all due respect, confidence in one’s own understanding of the US does not lead to hurling invective at anyone who questions it; and throwing around such words as “purity” will invite questions. It’s nothing to get angry about.
And you are getting things upside down; it is not the Tea Party legislators not working with the RINOs, but vice versa; the RINOs are openly working with the Democrats instead, and seemingly shamelessly so. It was not Ted Cruz uttering invective like “wacko birds”, but John McCain, for just one example. The RINOs cutting deals with the “Rats” are anything but nameless or faceless; we all know Boehner, Cantor, McCain, McConnell, Graham and the rest.
Many if not most conservatives do not see a liberal-leaning GOP being returned to majority power as the solution, having borne witness to the expansion of big government under the RINO-majority 2000-06 Bush administration. That trust has been wounded, critically if not fatally. The 2010 elections were more of a reflection of what the people in the US want rather than 2012, and seeing a pundit like Thomas Sowell reject what 2010 was about is more than merely troubling.
ping to self
ideology is what it is all about as long as you understand no two
people are going to line up up 100% of the time. If that were
the case we may as well be German National Socialist circa
1938. Ideology is one thing, dogmatism is quite another.
If there is no room for criticism within the conservatve movement
then whatever deals Boehner and the rest cut with the Rats makes
no difference. We’re doomed, anyway. And, things ain’t so bright
on the media side either. We have enemies on all sides and but
we still want to write off anyone who criticizes a flavor of the
month.
“However unjustified Senator Cruz’s actions, the very fact that a freshman Senator can so quickly gain so many supporters, with so much enthusiasm, ought to be a loud warning to the Republican establishment that they have long been a huge disappointment to a wide range of Republican voters and supporters,” he wrote.
I highly respect Dr. Sowell, owning many of his books. I missed these columns, and will try and go back and read them.
When Sowell speaks, I do listen. He has been around for a while, and if he thinks something is amiss, something may be amiss.
Believe what you want. Me not trusting Cruz doesn’t mean I support McCain etc.
i disagree... if the opinion is intellectually honest, let the chips fall where they may... the stronger ideas will stand... rise to the top... i do not agree with Thomas Sowell in this article, but i do not fear the discussion... having the discussion is much better than people falling into line without thought...
the Founding Fathers were often at odds with each other, and they intellectually hammered out their beliefs, ideals... they debated with vigor, passion... those sessions were not genteel... and they still came together--united in their belief of freedom...
if differing opinions that are "thoughtful" automatically make one the enemy, then who are we to criticize the Obamabots? we would be no different...
Bump.
But this is not mere differing opinions. This is choosing between liberalism and conservatism for the sake of a political party. It’s like trying to save the Whigs before the Civil War.
if that is the case, then yes--it is not merely a difference of opinion... however i do not believe that Sowell is choosing liberalism... i do not get that from this article...
That is not criticism within the conservative movement per se when what is being defended is liberalism.
Liberals conflate conservatives and Republicans all the time. We don’t need conservatives doing it; otherwise it makes one’s credentials as a conservative suspect.
Likely it will simply become single payer, because we can never meet the unfunded liabilities that our social programs have amassed, and both parties know this.
I don’t see how or where he is defending conservatism here. He is defending the Republican Party instead, which is not the same thing.
Replacing one unfunded liability with another is one heck of a “because”.
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