Ted Cruz Ping! If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.
Please beware, this is a high-volume ping list!
CRUZ or LOSE!
Posted on 05/27/2015 7:15:24 PM PDT by VinL
As he prepared for his presidential run over the last year or so, a hawkish Sen. Ted Cruz has said U.S. policy in the Middle East and elsewhere is a mess because of President Obama’s weakness — particularly his failure to enforce his own “red line” after the Syrian regime used chemical weapons.
“A critical reason for Putin’s aggression has been President Obama’s weakness,” the senator said in a typical appearance, on ABC News last year. “You’d better believe that Putin sees that in Syria,” Cruz added. “Obama draws a red line and ignores the red line.”
This takes quite a lot of chutzpah, even by Cruz standards. It’s true that Obama didn’t enforce his red line in Syria – in large part because Ted Cruz rallied opposition to bombing Syria.
I was reminded of Cruz’s hypocrisy this week by Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who served three tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan as an Air Force pilot. Kinzinger, who favors a muscular foreign policy, was one of a small group of House Republicans leading the effort to give Obama authority to bomb Syria in 2013 – but they were undone when Cruz began declaring that bombing the Syrian regime would mean make the United States “al Qaeda’s air force.”
“I think Ted Cruz bears some responsibility for not enforcing the red line” Kinzinger told me. “The Republican support began crumbling the more Cruz spoke. His words implied that anyone who voted for strikes would be acting as an agent of al Qaeda.”
Condemning Obama for failing to enforce the Syrian red line after blocking him from enforcing the very same red line? This is vintage Cruz...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“It’s true that Obama didn’t enforce his red line in Syria – in large part because Ted Cruz rallied opposition to bombing Syria.”
It is ridiculous to the extreme to think Cruz has any impact AT ALL on what Obama does. Obama is king in his own mind and he’s never given the senate any thought at all except to deplore it exists.
“They’re very scared. Cruz has the principals, the brains, the support, the grass roots, and the money.”
Cruz also has a bit of a mean streak. Throwing the reporters question about a personal hatred of homosexuals back in his face was something new to the left. I have some leftist friends who were horrified that he’d do such a thing.
I think mean is good in this case
A,yea like maybe someone should of started 40 years ago.
But better late than never. MSM, domestic enemy number one.
Good background. Cruz’s position is coherent and not hypocritical, nor is he trying to have it one way here and another way there. Milbank is being willfully obtuse in not recognising that Cruz could oppose military action against Assad while at the same time pointing out that from Putin’s perspective Obama’s “red line” walkback looked like weakness. The root problem is that Obama’s red line was dumb and was doomed to create only bad outcomes — either fighting for ISIS or looking weak. That was Obama’s screwup, but Milbank does a subtle twist to tar Cruz.
You’re right. He has some righteous anger that he expresses from time to time. It’s a risky thing for a conservative pol to do given the hostile media environment, but Cruz has the skill to pull it off.
“Sen. Cruz tried to stop Obamacare, executive amnesty and the CRomnibus and he got no support from the GOP. But somehow, according to Jeb Bush, Cruz convinced the Congress to follow him on foreign policy.”
Very good point.
“Whats this guy smokin’..”
Nothing. It’s just plain old mental illness.
Ted Cruz Ping! Hey Erik,
This sounds like your writing style.
Lots of weak and unsubstantiated accusations leading to outrageous and unsupportable conclusions.
Are you Milbank?
Ted Cruz Ping! Apparently, Milbank isn’t good at multi-faceted pproblems
This I’d a lousy hit piece, weak on substance.
I only point out Cruz’s very legitimate weaknesses.
If only Milquetoast believed that Ted was SINCERE, he would support him. Sure.
(Note: I said Ron on purpose, Rand himself has positioned himself more to the center than his father whose answer to every issue was stay out.)
This piece reinforces my views on Cruz's smart middle position. If anything it makes me think he's really good on foreign policy, and can make distinctions where people on the extremes want to use the same prescription regardless of the situation. (McCain: BOMB, Boots on Ground)(Ron Paul: Don't Get Involved)
Milbank's piece is poorly thought out. He conflates "ISIS" and the "Syrian Opposition". He claims Cruz is a 'charlatan' based on this confusion.
There is zero intellectual dishonesty these three positions:
The Hillary / McCain / Obama / Hawkish position of arming the Syrian rebels to help defeat Assad *did* result in a spectacular up-arming of ISIS, as group after group that had received US munitions and materials either fell to the them, or turned sides and joined them.
And, we'd have to add the Iraqi Army as the biggest failed local ally in the fight against ISIS, and the one who provided them the most captured USA munitions and equipment. Given this, and the IA (Iraqi Army) alignment with Iran we'd even have to think carefully about how much we try to use them to defeat ISIS in my opinion.
So, Cruz was right. The "support the Syrian opposition" was a very stupid policy, we can now look back and seen that. (Saying US support of Syrian rebels "created" ISIS as Rand did, is an overstatement. But it sure helped them arm up.)
There is another logic problem, at the heart of Milbank's piece. He claims these two positions are hypocritical:
Ted Cruz, as a Senator of opposition party is under no moral or political obligation to help Obama make his petty threats come true. Obama long ago forfeited the right to expect the Congress to back him on foreign policy. His recklessness, disregard of the Congress as a whole, flaunting of the separation of powers, and even rude dismissive attitude towards the Republican rank-and-file can not be forgotten or forgiven.
Cruz is working right in the middle of the mainstream of GOP thought when he presents these two ideas, which are in fact complimentary:
Cruz merely points out the obvious: now is not the time to depose Assad with bombs.
WaPo readers have long known Dana Milbank is that stupid. We must now add Rep. Adam Kinzinger to our list of not-very-bright DC opinion makers. Apparently he can't think one move ahead in checkers, else he would not have supported bombing Assad.
All in all, despite the author's attempt to defame Ted, it's one of the best pro-Cruz pieces I've read this month.
Not sure it makes up for his support of TPP and support for giving fast-track negotiating authority to Obama, but it does show that Cruz is thoughtful and continues to go his own way on foreign policy, avoiding the failures of the extremists on either side of him.
Milbank’s just one of Zero’s buttboys, and more generally a Partisan Media Shill.
He claims above that Adam was the one who reminded him that Cruz was to blame for what’s happening in Syria, and yet here:
[snip] Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who serves in the Air National Guard, pronounced himself “stumped on the answer in Syria. I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the answer is . . . I mean, this is a difficult quandary.” [/snip]
At the link below he accuses Pubbies of trying to have it both ways, which is in fact what this op-ed is doing, since his own Demagogic Party always does exactly that — forced by public outcry to drag us into a war, then criticizing the Republican President, cutting the budgets, playing hard to get:
Do memories of Iraq color Obama ‘red line’ options? [transcript from Closed Captioning]
Martin Bashir
April 30, 2013
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/martin-bashir/51722923
The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and Dana Milbank debate what President Obama’s “red line” on Syria and chemical weapons means for a response, as the humanitarian crises in Syria threatens to destabilize the entire region.
...no, it was a little bit frustrating. i mean, in the one sense, if we look at the contrast between this administration and the previous one, it’s a little bit refreshing to see somebody not jumping to conclusions there and to admitting this is what we know, this is what we don’t know. there have been... factually. he sai he said weapons have been used. don’t know who used them for what purpose. you don’t want to go rush in with a ground invasion. he’s been cagy about his red line . the notion of a game change is kind of frivolous. this isn’t a game, they’re actually talking about warfare here. so i’m not sure if i’m the syrian regime that i’m feeling terribly threatened by what the president is saying, but at the very least we’re getting some level of candor...
...well, it’s a combination. it is a war-weary, but as gene points out, there’s a very good reason for it and it’s not at all clear what can be done here. i think what you’re also having is the absence of sort of the neoconservatives beating the drums of war. yes, there’s bill kristol and a few others out there. even they’re being sort of vague as to what they would actually like to happen. i’ve been to hearings up on the hill. they’re all eager to criticize the president for not doing anything. nobody is very clear on what they would like him to be doing that he’s not doing already. there is truly no good option to be pursued here, and the public grasps that... to eugene’s point. eugene, the president was asked about another thorny issue today. the hunger strike at guantanamo bay . the military says 100 of 166 detainees are now participating. here’s what the president said. take a listen... gene, the president says he’s going to go back at it with congress. but once again, congress is in the way of this man every step of way, isn’t it?
Dana Milbank: Stunning disloyalty by Panetta
Former defense secretary throws president under the bus on Iraq.
By Dana Milbank - The Washington Post
October 7, 2014
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article2622702.html
http://www.dailyregister.com/article/20130511/News/130519998
President Obama said once again last week that Syria’s “use of chemical weapons would be a game-changer.”
The president had played this game many times before. “I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game-changer,” he said in March, in one of his administration’s many repetitions of the term.
But what game does Obama propose to change? “By game-changer,” ABC News’ Jonathan Karl asked him on Tuesday, “do you mean U.S. military action?”
The coach was not about to share his playbook. “By game-changer, I mean that we would have to rethink the range of options,” he volleyed.
Is it too late in the game to challenge Obama’s use of this sports metaphor to respond to Syria? The very real possibility that the Bashar al-Assad regime is about to use nerve agents to kill tens of thousands of people is not a “game.”
“Game-changer” — which has made its way from sports to business to politics and now to diplomacy — has replaced the “red line,” a term more easily understood by rogue regimes thinking of defying the United States. Game-change is a lazy reference, but that’s only part of the problem.
The term is one data point in the larger trend toward viewing government as a sporting contest, a series of games won and lost. In the perpetual battle to put a “W” in the column of the R’s (in the red jerseys) or the D’s (in blue), the sports talk helps the political class to forget that there are real human consequences to their games.
Obama and others in his administration have used the term in reference to food marketing standards (”truly a game-changer,” said the first lady), the JOBS Act (”a potential game-changer,” said the president), AmeriCorps, childhood-obesity prevention, Title IX, digital tutors, natural gas from shale, the Internet, the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, conversations about immigration, rail improvements, cyberspace research, and foreign-aid standards.
So, when the president warns Syria that chemical weapons are a “game-changer,” is Assad’s regime to assume he is using the term in the childhood-obesity sense or the Medicare sense?
...For them, and for the people of Syria awaiting a sarin gas attack from the sky, what happens in Washington isn’t an athletic contest. Let’s level the playing field for them, and put a red line around the whole notion that governing is a game.
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