Posted on 02/19/2014 4:18:55 PM PST by servo1969
A leading tea party intellectual has turned against the tea party movements 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 Cruzs 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 Cruzs 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 Cruzs 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.
One Hell raising sheep dog (Cruz) is worth 10 RINO-crat sheep (bitch mcconnel, insane mccain) in the senate, we are going up against DEMOCRAT WOLVES (Harry Whorehouse Reid) HERE!!!
Elect more sheep dogs into the senate, even if we remove 30 sheep and replace them with 3 sheep dogs it will be worth it!
We cannot change Democrat methods, and by this time we look pretty stupid begging them to agree that we are not bad people. That just makes their tactics successful and more likely to be repeated ever more outrageously at every opportunity. They have no motivation except the acquisition of power and subjugation of a permanent underclass. We don't need to suck up to them, we need to call them what they are. Ted Cruz does this with courage, style, and eloquence.
Some Demonrat thugs got to, or have something on, Sowell or his family.
Pray that God continues to protect Ted Cruz, his wife and their two daughters from these traitorous monsters.
ummm... no... pretty much that is the way it has gotten to be here... one differing opinion on some of these threads and you may as well be Nancy Pelosi...
If I were Sowell, I would have made my views known to Cruz privately, rather than playing right into the hands of the left with this airing of dirty laundry.
I disagree with Sowell here.
Sowell is a brilliant man, I happened to disagree with him on this because I think he is only looking at it from a single angle. What Ted is doing by threatening a filibuster is to draw attention to the fact that the base does not want the debt level raised. We want cuts and then we will raise the debt level one last time.
I very rarely read his articles, but I am still disappointed in him with this.
Well said. Thanks for your post.
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Agreed. I'm puzzled by this.
I think we all need to keep in mind this is an opinion written by some nobody no-one ever heard of before. I haven’t seen any articles by Sowell himself that appear negative to Sen. Cruz.
Could this be a false flag article?
Sorry to disagree with you, Dr Sowell, but conservative voters need to clean their own house before success can be had with the out-and-out leftists/socialists/communists embedded like ticks in .gov.
Even if McConnell, Graham, Cornyn and others were replaced by the Rats, that would be an acceptible outcome to me.
No GOPe ever again for me. Never.
I think Sowell is right generally. I do not think Cruz is poison, yet. I would prefer that Cruz be a Senator a bit longer before we vote him into the presidency, or better, that he do one term in the Senate then Governor. Then again, I don’t think we have the time. I disagree with Sowell about the debt ceiling action but am unwilling to say he is wrong. We shall see what we shall see.
Those who have been stabbing him in the back are holding back the conservatives as a whole! That makes it NOT all about Cruz, but all about getting more conservatives in the Senate.
This is the same argument that I had earlier today on another topic: correlation does not mean causation. Yes, his actions do help him personally, but that is no proof that it is the reason for the actions.
I think Cruz is thinking long-term, flushing the DC toilet of these parasites helps him, but it just needs to be done - PERIOD. Even Sowell agrees with that point.
I think this was more of Sowell giving Cruz a warning shot that he needs to hedge his bets a little better.
Thomas Sowell just showed me he is a short term thinker and my respect for him just dropped several notches.
Has this country become so bad that people can not express their opinions at all? What happened to disagreeing with someone but defending their right to express their opinion
Its going to get crazy so pick a side and ammo up.
I know. It’s unexpected, to say the very least.
I guess the thing I keep thinking is this - if Ted Cruz turns out to not be the real deal, disappoints us, is really in it for Ted Cruz and does not stick to conservative principles or the constitution after he has our vote, would that cause you and I, or say, Sarah Palin to change our principles and vote with John Boehner or Harry Reid? i.e., will the lack of support for our beliefs, no matter how unpopular they become with the culture of our day and no matter how in the minority we become, cause us to abandon them? I hope we are made of better stuff.
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