“I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”
Sen. Al Franken
Texas Senator Ted Cruz keeps needlessly digging himself deeper into a hole in an intensifying fight with independent Republican Liz Cheney. This morning, Joe Scarborough had some fun with Cruz, with some serious undertones, as Scarborough pointed out that Cruz cannot win this fight.
Ted Cruz has always been an enigma, back to his days as a law student at Harvard, where, despite the fact that even professors acknowledged that Cruz had a frighteningly powerful legal mind, everyone hated him, much as they respected his ability. The same sort of basic dynamic held right up until he was elected to the United States Senate. Extremely smart guy, hated by everyone.
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But over the last year, new questions have arisen on even the smart guy front, especially those touching on Ted’s id. Even before the Cancun thing and snowflake erupted, Ted has made a series of public mistakes that almost compelled those that knew of him to recall that famous line from Forest Gump in that “Stupid is as stupid does.” What if, for all the legal genius, Ted Cruz is actually a f’ing idiot? The evidence is mounting.
Cruz first suggested that Cheney run for president as a Democrat. A Cheney? A Democrat? That promptly led to him getting owned by Liz, to the point it got so bad that Cheney had to tell “ally” Eric Swalwell that the only way to get Ted Cruz’s respect was to attack his wife, a reference to Cruz’s embarrassing willingness to set aside Trump’s attacks on Cruz’s wife as less attractive than Melania, etc. Trump also vaguely accused Cruz’s dad of being in on the JFK assassination. Inflammatory stuff, about family? Water under the bridge for Cruz.
Video clip from Morning Joe:
#MorningJoe mocks Ted Cruz for getting burned by Liz Cheney, "My god. And she says he's not a real man for not standing up for his daddy. It's hard for me to believe." pic.twitter.com/3XBXG4wm1v
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) November 18, 2021
Cheney has had to continue to remind Ted that his blind willingness to support a man over defending his family is quite “un-Texan.” Joe Scarborough had fun pointing it out to Cruz this morning, while also observing that it was stupid for Cruz to continue this fight because he so obviously has nothing to gain:
“When we are kids, we’d stick our hands on the hot stove — ow — and you don’t keep doing it. Ted, he keeps going after Liz Cheney. Just move along, walk past the hot stove, because she’s going to talk about he’s not a real man for not standing up for his wife.
I mean, my God, and she said he’s not a real man for not standing up for his daddy. It’s hard for me to believe, because he’s from Texas. Most men I know in Texas, if you insult their wife or their daddies? I know Texans, they don’t put up with that, and Liz understands, she’s from Wyoming. In Wyoming, they don’t take kindly to people accusing their daddy of murder and calling their wife ugly, but here is poor Ted, he’s just going right along with it. Thanks to Liz Cheney, we’re reminded of that once again.”
And then Scarborough hit home on exactly why Cruz allows all this to happen. He has no choice. He has made his bed with Trump and thereby given up all independence in the name of “loyalty.” According to Scarborough:
…. I was wrong about deficits, I was wrong. No, I am who I am. I hope I’m maturing and growing in areas where I had blind spots, but I am who I am and Liz Cheney is who she is. Check the record, she had a 95-percent ACU rate, I had a 95-percent ACU rate. I’ve changed a little bit here and there, like everybody, does, but Ted Cruz sold his soul to a failed game show host and he’s the one who’s bobbing around like a pinball machine, like, ‘Donald Trump is the most horrible human being ever, he’s trash, and how dare he say that about my wife and how dare he say that about my dad assassinating JFK,’ and Donald Trump gets power and suddenly suddenly, the pinball machine keeps going for Ted.”
This brings us back around to another long-known Cruz trait. That his judgment has always given way in pursuit of power. Cruz’s allegiance to Trump is surely temporary and transactional. For now, Trump serves a Cruz need, proximity, and viability with power.
But the dynamic may change, faster than some think, and at that point, Cruz is going to have a whole host of new self-inflicted problems. Moreover, Cruz is not going to have a lot of goodwill to fall back upon. After all, he is likely the most hated man in the U.S. Senate. There won’t be anyone around to catch him when and if he falls.
And everyone tied to Trump eventually falls. You would think that a guy as smart as Ted would’ve figured that out by now.
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact with any concerns.
