Ross Douthat Seems To Think @TedCruz Is As Cynical As The Donald Himself

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

In reply to Who Is Ted Cruz?, I’ve got to say: judge the tree by the fruit. A sample:

With Cruz, though, even the most fervent peroration always feels like a debater’s patter, an advocate’s brief — compelling enough on the merits, but more of a command performance than a window into deep conviction.

Sure. Cruz always seems to be playing verbal chess, as Ross allows two paragraphs later: “. . .Cruz never seemed to take a step on any contentious issue without gaming it out 17 moves ahead.”

But if Cruz is merely cynically phoning in his entire career, then why did he lay on a 21 hour filibuster? Restated, can the detractors get beyond accusing Cruz of being excessively measured, and perhaps show where Cruz is actually inconsistent in his conservative approach? Or is our current state of Sophist decadence such that merely exhibiting principles of any sort is evidence of “his own extremism”.

I can understand a negative reaction to Donald Trump as a used car salesman with hair suitable for a Primus video. There is known audio at the NYT of DJT sounding somehow wobbly on his signature issue, immigration. Can anyone come up with similar examples for Cruz? Are we supposed to believe that Cruz’s immigration bill amendment proves anything beyond the fact that Cruz is. . .a politician?

Limbaugh’s point that “they hate Trump, but they fear Cruz” has the ring of truth. The Donald is the one apparently capable of pretty much anything for 30 pieces of silver. While falling short of accusing Cruz of perfection, he seems the straightest shooter in politics today. And that is the motive for all the innuendo in the NYT: the apprehension that Cruz actually does mean everything he says and does, as stated.

123 comments

  4. True dat any time these gilded lilies of the conservative punditry get too close to the flame they ignite. When the fire is extinguished all that’s left is a wet noodle

  9. Cruz is our only rational choice tho I’d vote for Trump over Hillary if I had to. I will not vote for Kasich under any circumstances. There simply isn’t enough of a difference between him and Hillary to make a distinction.

  10. Trump is an arrogant jerk. Hillary is so vile, though, that I’d rather have a braying jackass like Trump than a…um…er…braying jackass like Hillary. I’m ashamed to be associated via gender with such an evil human being.

  11. Poor performance by Douthat, who has generally grown more inner-directed as the years have gone on. You do seem some disconcerting features in Cruz as a public figure, but it’s more in his go-and-grab-it ambition and his oddly extensive impressment of his family in promoting him. His wife introduces him at campaign events, they’ve been carting their children around with them, his nephew and his paternal side cousins have appeared in advertisements, &c. The two family members who’ve sat this out have been his sister and his maternal-side aunt (and there’s some raw video of his mother telling him that certain subjects were not making it into the biography shorts she was in, “that’s too personal, Ted”). What’s curious about this is that fragmentary reports in the press suggest that Mrs. Cruz is actually an introvert by nature, as is his mother; Kitty Dukakis they ain’t.

    What’s distressing as we speak is the circular firing squad. Allies of Cruz jab Melania Trump for making a living from her feminine charms, Trump makes a veiled allusion to a brief nervous breakdown Heidi Cruz had in 2005, and allies of Trump dump a mess of manure in the public domain re (betting utterly fanciful) Cruz paramours. (It’s not quite the blatant BS the Rubio-is-Gay nonsense is).

    We’ve reached the point that some Trump supporters cannot argue the merits of their candidate without impugning the character of the other candidates and misrepresenting their biographies. Exhibit A: Don Surber, the retired (and evidently senile) West Virginia newspaperman to whom you link.

  12. Oh, there are plenty of policy differences. The problem with Kasich is that he’ll sell the base out on the immigration question. He’s said some inane things and collected some dubious characters around him (e.g. Vin Weber). RM Kaus has been hammering at this: Kasich + Ryan + McConnell = AMNESTY.

  14. Douthat is like Brooks, the other tame “conservative” at the Old Grey Hag. Like Brooks, he is often wrong, but never, never uncertain.

  16. He sold out the base in ’94 with the falsely named assault weapons ban. The man can’t be trusted in any way.

  18. In many ways he resembles Brooks. He’s just another tame “conservative” at the Grey Hag.

  20. “. . .Cruz never seemed to take a step on any contentious issue without gaming it out 17 moves ahead.” Isn’t this the same as Obama’s (alleged) mastery of three-dimensional chess? With a Democrat, it is a sign of a superior intellect. With a Republican, it is either cynicism or a character flaw. God help us.

  21. Consider his repeated assertion that Ted Cruz has spent “15 of the last 20 years in Washington”. I’ve pointed out to him that’s rubbish and he simply doubles down. In order to double-down, you have to forget how to count. Here’s the inventory:

    1995-96: Richmond
    1996-98: Washington
    1999-2000: Austin
    2001-03: Washington
    2003-08: Austin

    2008-10: Houston with work in Washington as well.

    2011-12: Houston, extensive travel all over Texas, and perhaps some work in Washington

    2013-15: Washington, with time in Houston.

    2015- : Washington, with extensive national travel.

    Surber pretends that he was living in Washington for the entire time bar 2003-08. Cruz employment history is a matter of public record and easy to research. He was a research assistant on the staff of the Bush campaign in 1999 and 2000. The campaign was headquartered in Austin, not Washington. The law firm he worked for from mid-2008 to January 2013 is headquartered in Philadelphia and has offices all over the U.S. In their announcement of his hiring, they noted that he would be working out of the Houston and Washington offices. His campaign for the Senate in 2011 and 2012 was labor intensive, requiring appearances in front of small groups all over Texas. His wife lives and works in Houston and has lived and work ed there since 2005. Pro-rating periods of part-time and seasonal residency, he has spent about 7-8 years in Washington since finishing his schooling in 1995. Bar a detour in 1999-2000, Heidi Cruz has been out of school since 1996. She spent about 4 years living and working in Washington (2001-05), which required some financial sacrifice on her part.

  22. Consider also Surber’s insistence that Cruz conflicts with McConnell et al are all for show and he’s really an establishment troll. Surber’s ‘evidence’ for that is that Cruz has spent ’15 of the last 20 years in Washington’. Consider also that Surber takes this National Enquirer manure dump at face value.

  23. He’s not like Brooks. Douthat is an unapologetic Catholic socon and he’s more assertive, not less, than he was 10 years ago.

  24. This Cruz guy makes the establishment scared? Is that the same Establishment that asked him to represent Bush in the contested election? Is that the same Establishment that had him doing the background on John Roberts, that paragon of conservative thinking.

    So then your definition of establishment does NOT include the Bush family….probably the MOST establishment family in the f@cking world. Cruz is ok with them but he supposedly scares the establishment…does anyone think about what they say before they say it these days. Cruz cut his teeth in politics working for the people who make the rules for the rest of the establishment. Rush is a fool…but apparently he has a lot of company.

  25. Oh I see because Cruz wasn’t in DC that means that working for the Bush’s doesn’t count as proof that Cruz is simply playing Anti-Establishment hero…he doesn’t believe it.

  26. In my experience, posers cannot keep up the act forever. Eventually, the mask slips.
    I’ve never seen it slip for Cruz in 4 years, so either he’s legitimate or the best liar I’ve seen in my life.
    I’m going to go with “genuine.”

    Trump, by contrast, changes his policies in the span of the same debate. It requires suspension of disbelief on the part of the observer to think that Trump is genuine.

  27. Cruz/Bush: guilt by association is okay.
    Trump/Pecker: Trump had nothing to do with the National Enquirer story.

    GTFO.

  28. “What’s distressing as we speak is the circular firing squad. Allies of Cruz jab Melania Trump for making a living from her feminine charms…”

    1) Liz Mair (whom I assume you’re obliquely referring to) has openly and repeatedly stated that she’s not pro-Cruz, she’s anti-Trump. There’s not a shred of evidence that I’ve seen plausibly connecting her to Cruz’ campaign or personnel.
    2) I’m getting a little tired of the false equivalence. Trump is a smear merchant, and Cruz is his victim. For that, I will never vote for Trump. Never.

  30. He was an employee of the Bush campaign and administration ca. 2001, ergo all of his conflicts with McConnell and Graham are for show. If I’m to take this at all seriously, the only person I could possibly trust would be some quondam aide to Alan Keyes.

  31. I didn’t say that but keep beating that strawman maybe you will get somewhere…of course the fact that Rubio is the one who was pushing the story of Cruz being a womanizer, kind of ironic given Rubio’s love of foam and pools…but whatever.

    And it isn’t GUILT by association…you simply cannot with a straight face claim you are outside of the establishment when your ENTIRE political career prior to being a Senator was being locked at the hip to the bluest bluebloods of the Establishment, the Bush clan.

    Rubio lied his way into the Senate…Cruz has always had his sights set higher. It is a darn shame to watch the conservative bloggers cover for him.

  32. No ‘establishment’ requested he do anything. Establishments do not request. Supervisors do.

    He was and is a skilled lawyer working for the Republican nominee that year. Gee, he ran for office as a Republican, too. It does not seem to occur to you that people co-operate and have intramural conflicts at the same time.

  33. That sort of naive nonsense is what got us to the point that we have an out of control government that views most of it’s people as the enemy.

    Cruz CHOSE to work for the Bush clan. A man of principle does not do this unless he agrees with those he works for…you have two choices. Either he didn’t agree with their values, which makes him a craven money grubber or he did agree with them which makes him a monumental liar right now.

    Oh and it is a two way street…he has to ask to work for them and they have to ask for him to work for them.

  34. Yea because candidates NEVER have anything to do with PAC’s because that would be against the law and we all know how much Politicians respect the law.

  35. Senator was being locked at the hip to the bluest bluebloods of the Establishment, t

    No, he challenged the favorite in the 2012 Republican primary in Texas. In Texas politics, he’s a protege of Greg Abbott, not George W. Bush. He got the endorsement of George P. Bush (Jeb Bush’s son), but also Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, Justin Amash, David Barton &c. Gov. Perry and a mess of sectoral lobbies preferred his opponent Dewhurst.

  37. It’s not that Trump is false. It’s that he’s a businessman for whom politicians are fungible. He does not have a stable viewpoint on much of anything because his previous engagement with the political process has been in efforts to get officialdom out of the way of his building projects.

    On a visceral level, the best advertisement for Cruz has been some of Trump’s supporters, who never stop lobbing inane accusations at others.

  38. Here is the cynical nihilism of Trumpkins on display. They think everybody is corrupt, and were already inclined against Cruz because of his religiosity.

    Trump supporters believe in nothing, and they will build nothing. All they can do is destroy.

  40. 1) No, you didn’t say that. But it was the clear implication of your train of logic even if you refused to play it out to the end.
    2) You know who else likes foam parties? Trump’s ally Roger Stone, the smear merchant himself and quite a reputed pervert.
    3) Bush and the “bluebloods” were in power when Cruz was working as a government lawyer. Who should he have worked for during those years, some anonymous nobody in the backwoods of Tennessee?
    4) Go peddle your bullshit to someone who cares. I will never vote for Trump now, and I will do everything I can to oppose him.

  42. Hey…didn’t Sarah Palin endorse Trump? But she also endorsed Cruz.
    I guess she’ll have to be thrown under the bus now, and we know Trump has no problem doing that, considering what he did to his own spokeswoman Katrina Pierson.

  43. The Internet is your friend…

    Cruz joined the George W. Bush presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser, advising then-Governor George W. Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform.[47]

    Cruz assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devising strategy, and drafting pleadings for filing with the Supreme Court of Florida and U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Bush v. Gore, during the 2000 Florida presidential recounts, leading to two wins for the Bush team.[43][50] Cruz recruited future Chief Justice John Roberts and noted attorney Mike Carvin to the Bush legal team.[48]

    After Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department[3][50] and as the director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.[3][39][50]

  45. Ah so now you are a mind reader…

    We know that Rubio’s campaign was the origin of the smear against Cruz. And given Cruz’s campaign staff I don’t think he can be throwing any rocks.

    Cruz was recruited to work for them…sheesh this is the Presidency of the United States they were fighting for…they weren’t going to go there with a pick up team.

  46. I wouldn’t say that about any but an opinionated few. Essentially, they make personal-partisan committments and then it’s lunacy all the way down, rather like the John Birch Society back in the day. I just encountered one who says Eleanor Darragh’s birth certificate is forged. Why stop there? Maybe the woman he’s been passing off as his mother is some dame he hired off of Craigslist.

  47. I am supporting Trump because he is saying what needs to be said. He also has always opposed these dumb ass trade deals.

  48. Well the way I feel about a leader of my country is that he stands with those who stand with him and when they stop standing with him he casts them off. Leaders cannot do anything else.

  49. Neither one is a dope, and they don’t resemble each other in any particular other than they write newspaper columns and have a BA from a private university with a measure of cachet. Douthat’s nearly 20 years younger than Brooks, Catholic, and has never been anything but a critic of BO.

  50. He raised an issue that had already been raised by Rick Santorum and with regard to which Cruz is in agreement with some qualifications.

Comments are closed.