Debate Performance Cannot Overshadow Decades of Personal History

Patriot Post ^ | 2/12/16 | Joan Fischer

[Pelham]

Max Boot, the neoconservative Russian import.

If anyone shares Mussolini’s love for getting involved in wars it’s Max Boot and his democracy project pals.

Like most of the neocon faction Boot promotes American military intervention for the purpose of remaking the world.

He was all for Clinton’s Balkan’s adventure. He urged Dubya to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. He supported Obama’s Libyan campaign.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/1626

[Just mythoughts]

Note the ‘timing’ of this hit piece... Was it not about the same time as NR came out with its hit piece on Trump? The permanent bitching scribes, of the so called conservative punditry planted this story. And while they themselves are not about to call Trump a modern Mussolini... publicly, they (including the gasbags of talk radio) have join in with the GOPe to try and take him out.... A modern day cabal.

[betty boop]

Ted Cruz is as crooked as a country road.

P.S. to my last, Aquamarine:

Just to be crystal clear: I want you to know that I started out as an enthusiastic supporter of Ted Cruz, as any review of my past posts would make plain.

But I was totally shocked, stunned by the shenanigans perpetrated against Ben Carson in Iowa by the Cruz campaign, and a number of like incidents subsequent to that.

Cruz claimed he knew nothing about these things -- plausible deniability at work. Then he finally apologized to Dr. Carson (while still maintaining he "knew nothing" about the incident -- Sgt. Schultz at his best); but the damage had already been done. It may be he eked out his narrow victory in the caucus because of the manifest falsehood, advanced by his campaign, that Dr. Carson had withdrawn from the race.

To me, incidents like this are nothing but dirty tricks; and only a crooked man, a dishonest man, would perpetrate them, or be a party to them, or a beneficiary of them.

Such a man is not fit to be President of the United States. Period.

Subsequently, I have found a fit description for Senator Cruz: He is a SOPHIST.

Sophist, noun:
a paid teacher of philosophy and rhetoric in ancient Greece, associated in popular thought with moral skepticism and specious reasoning; a person who reasons with clever but fallacious arguments.

IMHO, this definition fits Ted Cruz to a tee; and I am simply disgusted with him.

He reminds me of the character Callicles (a vicious, conniving, ambitious man), in Plato's dialogue, The Gorgias. Callicles' argued that "might = right." He was the champion of moral relativism. In the dialogue, Socrates destroys this argument, and makes Callicles look like the FOOL he is.

So Callicles, out of revenge and sheer spite, colludes with a couple of buddies, and gets Socrates charged on a baseless allegation of "corrupting the youth of Athens," a crime for which Socrates was convicted and for which he received the death penalty....

The trial of Socrates is the story told in Plato's Apology....

I don't much care for Callicles -- nor Ted Cruz, who seems to resemble him to my mind.

Aquamarine, as Heraclitus said, "Character is destiny." I daresay Cruz is a man of bad character....

JMHO FWIW

[joanie-f]

I have debated, on other political websites, the merits of the charges being thrown at Cruz and his campaign regarding what happened after CNN's announcement that Carson was headed back to Florida, and I have vowed not to enter in any such debates anymore, simply because no minds seem open to changing their opinion on this matter. Timelines do not match up, interpretations do not come together for a meeting of the minds, and people are immovable regarding their opinion about it, simply because of the 'facts' as they see them. If you cannot accept the fact that I will no longer address that issue, because I have already spent countless hours doing so, then you probably will not want to read what follow (and I completely understand that).

Donald Trump has left behind him decades of broken promises, lies, vicious personal attacks on people who have done nothing more egregious than disagree with him, and monumental changes of heart/mind regarding his political allegiances. I referred to four (of many) such examples in my recent Patriot Post commentary, posted here just yesterday.

Yet, after being made aware of such characterless behaviors, spanning decades, rather than stepping back and analyzing such behaviors, many of his supporters instead either (1) choose to point to a single incident possibly committed by one of his political opponents, and/or (2) completely ignore, or denigrate without factual support, the evidence being presented against Trump's character.

I, and others, will be checking back here in late summer, once Trump has garnered the republican nomination, after which the media will be releasing a destructive version of the dogs of war such as we have never seen, 'conveniently' exposing the underside of every one of Trump's personal and business 'deals', after which the democrat nominee (whomever that will be, avowed socialist, or covert socialist/felon) will simply waltz into the White House and complete Mr. Obama's 'transformation of America'.

The most tragic aspect of that entirely choreographed scenario will be that there was a Reagan-esque leader who valiantly sought to prevent our republic's demise, and the American electorate turned their backs on him, according vocal and unyielding preference to a snake oil salesman who promised them what they wanted to hear, but whose promises were not worth the breath it took to utter them.

[xzins]

Do you mean Carson?

[Aquamarine]

Joanie-f laid out the background on Ted Cruz's character in her opening post. From everything I've heard Ted is a man of good character. What happened in Iowa with Carson was unfortunate and I blame CNN and his staff yet Cruz still had the good character to apologize for what others had caused. The media blew the whole thing up to make Cruz look bad then Trump used it to ruin Cruz's win. It was unfair to Cruz and his supporters and the wound is reopened every time I hear a conservative repeat the charge against him.

I know that I'm not going to change your mind nor are you going to change mine. We have both judged these men's character and drawn different conclusions.

[betty boop]

CNN did not report that Dr. Carson had withdrawn from the race, suspended his campaign. They just reported that he went home to Florida, presumably en route to South Carolina. Anyone on the Cruz campaign could have picked up the phone to call the Carson campaign for a clarification, if there was any doubt about what CNN reported. It would have taken five seconds. No one did. Instead, they broke the story to some ~1500 caucus precincts that Dr. Carson had quit the race, in no time at all.

That is the fact.

But I do agree with you, dear Joanie, about one thing: It is probably pointless for us to continue going back and forth on this.

[xzins]

It is probably pointless for us to continue going back and forth on this.

Well, not exactly, dear Sister in Christ.

I'm convinced -- gut feel if you will -- that one of the main reasons Carson stays in the race is to get back at Cruz. His Christian conservative support would gravitate to Cruz as much or more as to anyone else.

I think that's what the 'broom closet' meeting was all about.

Ted hadn't thought about someone taking it personally.

[Aquamarine]

You wrote a well thought out Post and it was reassuring for me to see that there are people out there that are seeing these candidates and their merits in the same light that I do. We could be witnessing a lost opportunity to turn this country around in a lawful way and agree with you that the dogs of war will soon be released on Trump who probably carries more baggage than we can even imagine.

[joanie-f]

We could be witnessing a lost opportunity to turn this country around in a lawful way and agree with you that the dogs of war will soon be released on Trump who probably carries more baggage than we can even imagine.

Agreed. Once he has the nomination in hand, the media (who no doubt have been amassing a mountain of 'dirt' on him) will time-release that mountain of evidence that he is not fit to be president, and, if the FBI and the DOJ have not honored their Constitutional commitment before then, the socialist felon will most likely win in a landslide.

The choreography (and it really is quite impressive in its behind-the-scenes intricacies) is unprecedented.

[betty boop]

... one of the main reasons Carson stays in the race is to get back at Cruz. His Christian conservative support would gravitate to Cruz as much or more as to anyone else.

Very interesting insight, dear Brother xzins. It certainly makes sense.

Methinks Ted is toast. So is Rubio for that matter. Super Tuesday should tell the tale.... I've already voted, in Massachusetts. I'm recovering from a hip injury, so requested an absentee ballot, which I've already voted and returned. March 1st will be a late night for me!

There was an amazingly enlightening essay in today's edition of The New York Post, by Peggy Noonan. Now Peggy is no spear carrier for The Donald, to be sure. But I daresay she sees the "big picture" of this presidential election better than anyone else I've read thus far.

Here's an excerpt:

...I got to thinking of how Donald Trump got to be the very likely Republican nominee. There are many answers and reasons, but my thoughts keep revolving around the idea of protection....

There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully.

The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful -- those who have power or access to it. They are protected from much of the roughness of the world. More to the point, they are protected from the world they have created. Again, they make public policy and have for some time....

They are figures in government, politics, and media. They live in nice neighborhoods, their kids go to good schools, they've got some money. All of these things tend to isolate them, or provide buffers. Some of them -- in Washington it is important officials in the executive branch or on the Hill; in Brussels, significant figures in the European Union -- literally have their own security details.

Because they are protected they feel they can do pretty much anything, impose any reality. They're insulated from many of the effects of their own decisions.

One issue obviously roiling the U.S. and western Europe is immigration. It is THE issue of the moment, a real and concrete one but also a symbolic one: It stands for the distance between governments and their citizens.

It is of course the issue that made Donald Trump....

In wise governments the top is attentive to the realities of the lives of normal people, and careful about their anxieties. That's more or less how America used to be. Now it seems the attitude of the top half is: You're on your own. Get with the program, little racist.

Social philosophers are always saying the underclass must re-moralize. Maybe it is the overclass that must remoralize.

I don't know if the protected see how serious this moment is, or their role in it.

Man, can that girl write!!!

Meanwhile, we have a kind of bidding war going on between would-be presidential candidates, regarding who has the best programs and policy prescriptions. As if we Americans are buying a new car, and so are comparing the features of various models to find the one we think "best."

To me, in this political year, that sort of thing is entirely beside the point.

I think Peggy Noonan is calling things just right. I certainly agree with her analysis. I care ever so much more about Joe Sixpack, who clings to his guns and his Bible, than I do the arrogant, elite ideologues and mover-and-shaker politicians and pundit class who are irresponsibly ruining our country.

And so does Donald Trump.

JMHO, FWIW

Thanks ever so much, dear brother in Christ, for your insights about that "meeting in the broom closet."

[xzins]

Thanks, Betty. It is a great article by noonan. The elite, aka the protected, are almost nietzche’s idea of ubermensche, aren’t they? Or fancy themselves such.

[trisham]

I can’t believe that Super Tuesday is just the day after tomorrow. Holy cow.

[betty boop]

The elite, aka the protected, are almost nietzche’s idea of ubermensche, aren’t they? Or fancy themselves such.

Indeed, dear brother in Christ. Methinks these types are going to have a devil of a time on Judgment Day. Though I do not know the details of how God judges, I suspect He will find their arrogance, vanity and heartlessness unforgivable.

I'm glad to leave this issue to Him.