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Posted on 03/05/2015 1:10:28 PM PST by SoConPubbie
Sen. Ted Cruz is now the leader of a reactionary faction that includes some of the dimmest bulbs in Congress. (AP Photo/)
In advance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Tuesday, the New York Times reported on a small irritant exacerbating already tense U.S.-Israeli relations. It seems President Barack Obama’s former campaign operative, Jeremy Bird, is currently advising a group in Israel that seeks to defeat Netanyahu in national elections later this month.
The story is mostly inconsequential. American political consultants have worked for one side or another in foreign countries for years. Political skills and strategies are surprisingly adaptable to various democratic nations — or at least that’s what many foreign political parties believe. For U.S. consultants, the work is profitable, prestigious and fun. It arguably expands U.S. influence abroad and creates relationships that U.S. leaders can occasionally tap for insight into foreign peers.
Still, the article provided a small, telling window into the character of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. In an interview with the Times, he said, "It is deeply troubling that President Obama’s national field director is helping run the campaign to defeat the democratically elected leader of one of our closest friends and allies, the nation of Israel."
You see what he did there, right? In Cruz’s formulation, Bird isn’t working for a democratic group trying to influence the outcome of a democratic election in order to advance a particular vision of democratic politics. He’s working "to defeat the democratically elected leader of one of our closest friends and allies." The statement manages to be technically true while implying that a former Obama campaign aide is a treasonous little Bolshevik. (For the record, Republican consultants, too, have worked "to defeat the democratically elected leader of one of our closest friends and allies" in Israel and the United Kingdom.)
Why focus on this evanescent instance of Cruz’s standard operating procedure when so many other examples exist? (Cruz’s first resort after Netanyahu’s speech was to compare Obama with Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler.) Precisely because it matters so little. No matter how insignificant the prompt, Cruz’s default is sly insinuation or plain demagogy.
Everyone is a potential prop. Cruz told a conservative audience that Senate Democrats were pushing legislation to "repeal the First Amendment." He used a speech last September to a group devoted to protecting Christians in the Middle East as a dramatic set piece to symbolically martyr himself for Israel. The gambit was so crudely transparent that even a few conservatives noted it. Moderate Republican Rep. Charlie Dent — who represents a Pennsylvania district including Americans of Syrian and Lebanese descent — called Cruz’s performance "outrageous and incendiary."
There is irony in Cruz’s chosen path. Once a law student eager to study only with graduates of the very top Ivy League schools, he is renowned for his elite intellect. Yet Cruz is now the leader of a reactionary faction that includes some of the dimmest bulbs in Congress.
Demagogy, of course, is intended to advance ambition, not thwart it. Robert Caro’s "Master of the Senate" tells of Democratic Senator Lyndon Johnson using the power of an obscure subcommittee and his own bottomless ambition to destroy a good man. In Caro’s telling, Johnson wanted to please the natural gas industry by railroading Leland Olds, the chairman of the Federal Power Commission in the 1940s, out of his job. So Johnson dredged up old accusations and cast Olds in the role of Communist sympathizer. It was pure demagogy, as Johnson’s future vice president, Senator Hubert Humphrey, more or less stated at the time. But it worked. Johnson won the battle and eventually the presidency. Johnson’s successor was another whose ambition outpaced his ethics: Richard Nixon.
While Johnson and Nixon used demagogy to advance strategic agendas, Cruz seems incapable of such discernment. For him, it appears more a force of habit, as if he can’t resist political temptation and doesn’t try to. In effect, Cruz’s lack of scruples dumbs him down. In attempting to clear his path to power, he obstructs it. The smartest guy in the room turns out to be a dunce.
Francis Wilkinson writes on politics and domestic policy for Bloomberg View.
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Somebody is afraid of Ted Cruz!
Hey Francis, nobody gives a crap what you think.
Defenders of the Constitution = Reactionaries. Maybe they should wear powdered wigs like the original reactionaries did.
Sen. Ted Cruz is now the leader of a reactionary faction that includes some of the dimmest bulbs in Congress
I went no further after reading this. Democrats have some of the stupidest people in Congress.
I guess Francis Wilkinson would know a dim bulb when he sees one. The bulb in his brain obviously burned out long ago,
They not only fear/hate the man but they also fear/hate his shadow.
My God Bless Ted Cruz and all who stand with him.
Maoism is extreme. Nancy Pelosi is extreme.
Barack Obama is extreme.
Ted Cruz is as moderate as an American politician can be.
MAN thats some world class.. propaganda..
“dim bulbs” would be literally anybody thats a democrat..
true.. not a few republicans as well...
The place is awash with TREASON... the ship of state is listing..
The US Titanic has hit a Commieberg.. Cruz is merely yelling SOS thru a megaphone..
And this idiot is drinking Sherry sitting a table waiting for Obama to FIX IT!..
Going down with the ship.. Jeese.. would make a good novel..
A comedy..
Why would anyone, other than a Bolshevik, would refer to any politician “reactionary”?
Demagogy, demagogy! Demagogy is the bedrock philosophy of the Bolshecratic Party.
Cruzing with Ted!
Cruz has joined the Democrats ? I don't believe it!
Hmmmm ....
Gee, he left out the part where LBJ used assassination
to become president.
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