Ted Cruz: The Senator as Dickhead:
Ted Cruz is a cartoon character, a cynical, manipulative bastard, like a combination of Li'l Abner's Senator Jack S. Phogbound and J. Colossal McGenius, the former the engorged-on-power Congressman who tries to act like one of the people of Dogpatch, the latter a bloviating liar who charged top dollar for his burps of "wisdom." (And, really, Cruz looks like a thinner version of Phogbound.) The junior senator from Texas preens and prances around, proudly provoking many of his fellow Republicans, who despise him because he's arrogant, because he gets headlines, because he's pushing them into battles they don't want to have, and, mostly, because he doesn't owe them shit. If you listen to him speak, he sounds like George W. Bush fucked Grover Norquist who then shit out baby Ted while proud grandparents Tom DeLay and Jesse Helms looked on approvingly. He is this generation's vile embarrassment, a craven opportunist who is Ivy-League educated, the better to make the rhetorical turds he spits out shine like golden eggs to the desperate yahoos who believe in him.
In the end, Ted Cruz is all about the greater glorification of Ted Cruz.
In an editorial for Real Clear Politics, Cruz lays out his destructive game plan for his quest to defund the Affordable Care Act. It goes something like this: "We'll filibuster the bill I support. We'll succeed in this by pointing a gun at the heads of red state Democrats. That'll end it unless I'm betrayed by cocksuckers in my own party. I'm threatening them, too, with supporting primary opponents because 'a vote for cloture is a vote for Obamacare.' Oh, and if I fail, 'Regardless, the House should stand its ground, and if Reid kills this Continuing Resolution then the House should pass smaller CRs one at a time, starting with the military. Dare Reid to keep voting to shut down the government.'"
Isn't that last part fucking brilliant? In the wake of a failed filibuster of the House bill, a bill that Cruz supports, he wants the House to pass a military budget that defunds the ACA. Or a budget for, say, Homeland Security that defunds the ACA. That way it's all up to Reid and Obama. Except for the part that nobody but the people who masturbate to Cruz's Fox "news" appearances is buying that the President and Harry Reid would be responsible for a government shutdown.
That's what the old hands in the GOP know. Why do they know that? Because they fucking went through it when a power-crazed Newt Gingrich did it in 1995 and 1996. People weren't saying, "Oh, well, Bill Clinton didn't compromise enough with Republicans." No, they said, "Wow, Newt Gingrich is an egotistical, bloated fucksack. Screw that guy." And Clinton's popularity surged, helping him with his reelection. If Cruz really believes that Americans will wake up to a government shutdown and say, "I suppose President Obama and the Democrats should have defunded that law they worked so hard on" instead of "What the fuck is wrong with Republicans?" then he truly is crazy and needs to be treated like a crazy person.
And a blatant hypocrite, too. He writes, "We know the Democratic leadership wants to fund Obamacare, and it’s certain Leader Reid will use every gimmick, obscure parliamentary trick, and sweetheart deal to do it. After all, that’s how he passed Obamacare in the first place." Those "tricks" are the rules of the Senate. They may have been used in a way Cruz thinks is bastardly, but the rules are the rules. Frankly, a Republican who is all about filibustering everything the President wants should probably not talk about torquing the rulebook. And if that Republican is digging deep into the rulebook to see what he can get away with in this battle, yeah, he should just shut the fuck up.
By the way, you know how to get the rules changed? Get a majority in the Senate. That's also the way to overturn legislation you don't like.
Cruz ends his mighty stand of mightiness by declaring victory shall be his. And what is winning? "Now, we’re poised to win our biggest victory for the American people yet: defunding Obamacare. All we have to do is have the will to fight." You got that? The best possible outcome is not getting rid of a health care plan and replacing it with something else that would get insurance to millions of Americans. No, it's just denying it to them just because. Republicans win by stopping something, not by creating anything.
The Rude Pundit was listening last week to an interview with Jeff Guinn, author of a new book about Charles Manson. See, Manson wanted fame. First, he wanted it through his music. He sort of stumbled into the murder spree, according to this author, but, hey, then he embraced the infamy it brought him. The other thing was that Manson was desperate to keep his cult followers believing that he was some kind of prophet. When his music dreams were shot down, he had to get the Family to still have faith in his message. So murdering people and pinning it on the Black Panthers to try to start a race war was his next step. In other words, a Manson who was chastened by the music industry didn't give up. He just went in a far more destructive direction.
Cruz, who has ambitions beyond the Senate, will not be stopped by losing the Obamacare battle. He has a cult to feed. We should dread what comes next.
