Sunday, July 26, 2015

Ted Cruz Pulls A Trump

by JASmius



"He has a colorful way of speaking. It's not the way I speak, but I'm not going to engage in the media's game of throwing rocks and attacking other Republicans. I'm just not going to do it.” [Emphasis added]

Please, Senator Cruz. That IS the way you speak, and throwing rocks at and attacking other Republicans has been your mission in life for the past two and a half years. And now you're rather flagrantly lying about it, further insulting our intelligence. Which goes to show that you're almost as unserious a candidate as Trump.

- Me, three weeks ago


Since then Donald Trump has savaged John McCain as a coward, scrawled Lindsey Graham's private cell phone number on men's room walls across the country, and lampooned Scott Walker as the Republican Mary Burke....and rocketed to the top of the meaningless national GOP primary polls.

So suddenly - this past Friday, to be specific - Senator Cruz "regained" his taste for "speaking colorfully, throwing rocks at and attacking other Republicans" (He doesn't attack Trump because Trump isn't one), taking the Senate floor to call Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) - for whom Cruz voted for that leadership post six months ago, which I found inexplicable at the time and still do - a "lying, corrupt, cylinder-headed, mother!#$%ing mound of loose Hutt blubber who should go anally pleasure himself with his corncob pipe" over the Export-Import Bank or some such.  Or words to that effect.  Because Cruz is mired in the cellar of the GOP presidential race and is still angling to be Trump's hatchetman veep.  Friday was probably a preliminary audition.

The Donald would have been so proud.

Which is not to say that I don't think the Texas backbencher meant and believed every word he said.  Cruz is no liar, just as he's no Republican, no team player, regularly wipes his ass with President Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment," and has no business running for president.

And, as I'm sure the Texas junior senator intended, the "establishment" fired back, although with a lot more class:

Senator Ted Cruz drew rebukes Sunday from fellow Republicans for attacking Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor and using the chamber to advance what one lawmaker called "personal ambitions."...

Touche.

Cruz complained that McConnell, who also opposes the Ex-Im Bank, had promised him and other Republicans that there would be no deal to allow the Ex-Im amendment.

"I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie," Cruz said during a floor speech Friday.

Not being privy to that conversation, none of us can really judge the merits of Senator Cruz's accusation.  But I would find it a lot easier to take seriously if Cruz wasn't (1) running for president (2) in the caboose of the GOP primary train, and (3) any of his Tea Party compatriots had echoed his charge.

Senators responded during a rare Sunday session before advancing the Ex-Im amendment on a 67-26 vote.

"Regrettably, in recent times, the Senate floor has too often become a forum for partisan messaging," said Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah.

"It has been used as a tool to advance personal ambitions, a venue to promote political campaigns, and even a vehicle to enhance fundraising efforts, all at the expense of the proper functioning of this body," said Hatch, who didn't mention Cruz by name.

But nailed him to the wall nonetheless.

Cruz spoke on the floor moments later, saying he agreed with Hatch's call for civility and decorum. Still, he said, "speaking the truth [about Mitch McConnell being a lying, corrupt, cylinder-headed, mother!#$%ing mound of loose Hutt blubber who should go anally pleasure himself with his corncob pipe] is entirely consistent with civility.  [I'll be happy to buy him a tub of Astroglide.]"

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, Texas's senior senator, could have challenged Cruz to a fistfight before the C-SPAN cameras that would have lived in YouTube fame for decades, but he settled for calling his junior colleague "mistaken" instead.  More's the pity.

As for Mitchie the Kid, he didn't take the bait, but didn't apologize for not being a ruthless partisan SOB like Harry (G)Reid, either:

In opening the Sunday session, McConnell said that "when there is overwhelming bipartisan support for an idea, even if I oppose it, it doesn't require some 'special deal' to see a vote occur on that measure."

Well, yeah, Mitch, but there were all kinds of equivalently popular conservative ideas during Dirty Harry's eight year reign of terror that he stuffed anyway.  Ted Cruz may be a big-mouthed, Bambi-eyed, trolling, disloyal, backstabbing son-of-a-Trumplet, but he's not wrong about the Ex-Im Bank, which is one of the biggest, steamiest piles of corporate welfare in the federal budget.  You should have not allowed any vote on it and stuffed it instead.

Maybe if Senator Cruz had asked nicely and collegially, McConnell would have considered it.  But I guess that's just not the way of lying, corrupt, cylinder-headed, mother!#$%ing mounds of loose Hutt blubber.

Did I mention that Democrats blocked the Majority Leader's ObamaCare repeal amendment, exactly as I predicted?  That didn't even last long enough to gin up any base brownie points, assuming it ever would have.

As a postscript, here's another abject lesson for Ted Cruz in the wages of "throwing rocks at and attacking other Republicans":

Also on Sunday, senators refused to support a maneuver by Cruz to skirt a procedural rule blocking an Iran-related amendment he sought to add to the highway bill. The measure would have blocked sanctions relief to Iran until the Islamic [Empire] recognized Israel's right to exist and freed four Americans who are missing or being held there.

There's a lot of skepticism and outrage about how the White House is treating Congress like an ex-wife on the Iran nuclear sellout (at least part of which they brought on themselves).  You would think that such an amendment would draw broad support.  And while senators shouldn't hang that support on whether or not they want to punch Ted Cruz in the mouth, might it not have behooved Bambi to employ some of that "civility and decorum" and remembered that slowing down the Iran "deal" is more important than tearing Mitch McConnell more apertures than a Borg transwarp hub?

It certainly would have been more "presidential".


UPDATE (7/27): Maybe House 'Pubbies "got the message"?:

The House will not vote on a multi-year Senate highway bill that revives the now-expired Export-Import Bank, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA23) said Monday.

“We’re not taking up the Senate bill,” McCarthy declared to a roomful of reporters in his office.

Instead, McCarthy urged the Senate to take up a short-term House-passed bill which extends federal highway funding for five months, without renewing the Ex-Im Bank charter. He called the House bill the “best option” for Congress before money for highways, bridges and mass transit runs out on Friday.

So whether Mitchie the Kid is the "liar" of Ted Cruz's depiction or the fool who thought it would make the GOP look like an "efficient governing party" that can "get things done" to churn out horrid legislation its own base loathes as a bulwark against the next, looming government shutdown for which Republicans will be blamed anyway, he wound up pissing off Tea Partiers (again) for nothing.

Or, an example of "Failure Theater" actually working in our favor for once.


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