TED CRUZ & THE LATE JOE McCARTHY: “PEAS-IN-A-POD?”

 

…The late Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy

 

Some are hoping that Ted Cruz realizes the same fate in the Senate as the late Joe McCarthy.

 

You may recall that it was over a year ago that on MSNBC’s Chris Matthew’s HARDBALL political program that he not only mentioned that Ted Cruz physically resembled the late Wisconsin Senator, Joe McCarthy, Cruz was also acting like the late Senator.  In that statement, Matthews was referring to the lies that back in the 1950’s McCarthy had spread accusing others in both Washington and in Hollywood of being Communist sympathizers.  This was at a time when there was a cold war going on between the US and the then Soviet Union, and an accusation like this ruined many innocent American politician’s lives and actor's movie careers.

 

Why it has taken until now for the media and the members of the political arena to react to  the dishonesty of Ted Cruz has amazed me ever since he first came on the political scene.

 

As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has written, “…Cruz has been smearing and fabricating since he arrived in Washington three years ago. As early as April 2013, I observed a perplexing tendency at the Capitol: “Republicans are willing to look the other way when Cruz assaults the facts.” One of his first acts as a senator was to spread the slander that Chuck Hagel, the incoming defense secretary, may have been on the payroll of the North Koreans.”

 

It would have been nice if this had just been a one-time mistake on Cruz’ part.  But it became the first of many less than honest items coming from this junior Texas Senator.  This is just one reason why Cruz is so disliked by the other US Senators and why he has not had one indorsement from any US Senator.

 

Even the circus ring leader Donald Trump has gotten to Tweeting that Ted Cruz  was the  “Biggest liar in politics!”

 

Cruz had even agreed in an interview on Fox News that Trump and Rubio keep yelling “liar, liar, liar,” at him, but Ted just says that’s because, “they won’t defend their record”.  The reality is that Cruz really is a “liar, liar, liar.”

 

Fortunately, many of the Republicans in the US Congress have now come to understand that as it was in the 1950’s with Joe McCarthy, Ted is also now considered as a rascal, a liar and a charlatan.

 

After Ted showed up on the scene in 2013, he lied about saying that having background checks for gun owners would lead to a national gun registry.  The background check bill negotiated by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) didn’t make it through the US Senate due to the Cruz lie.

 

Cruz also accused that the IRS had given “confidential taxpayer records” to an Obama operative.  This never happened and there was never any evidence to show it did, just his false statements.

 

He would later alleged that Obama had supported the release of the bomber of the Pan Am flight 103 Lockerbie crash which was also totally false.  Where he gets these statements is apparently just deep in his ugly imagination.

 

But since the primaries began, Ted’s scoundrel activities have only increased.  And his fellow conservatives now understand that Ted’s campaign slogan "TRUSTED is totally false and they are now calling him out as the fraud he is.

 

The first big campaign lie came against his competition, Dr. Ben Carson.  Carson later demanded that Cruz fire somebody for the spreading of the false rumor that Carson was leaving the GOP race.  But Cruz responded saying  that he didn’t “make a habit” of doing such things as firing his aides.  As Dana Milbank late wrote: having “Cruz firing a staffer for being underhanded is like President Obama firing a staffer for having big ears.”

 

But Cruz did fire his communications director, Rick Tyler, for publishing the false allegation that Marco Rubio had disparaged the Bible. Tyler’s transgression was totally inexcusable, but it was probably done under the direction of his former boss.

 

I knew something was wrong when I heard that Cruz had hired Rick Tyler.  Tyler is well known and he has been around for many elections and he was the perfect shill and a questionable choice for Cruz.

 

Not only has The Post’s Milbank written about the lack of honesty with Cruz, but the opinion writers David A. Fahrenthold and Katie Zezima, recently wrote about the 2013 government shutdown that Cruz orchestrated.  They wrote that many Republicans suspected Cruz “always knew his shutdown plan would fail but went ahead with it anyway, expecting that he would personally benefit from all of the exposure, even if his party lost a damaging fight.”

 

Most observers also feel that his current bid for the nomination is much the same.  It is probably going to fail, but he will damage many others as he goes down.  As I had said, there is a good reason he is not well liked within his own senate .

 

During his current campaign for the Republican nomination, Cruz’ stump speech includes many false statement.  In the New Hampshire primary, he told a numbers of falsehoods about Trump, Rubio and Obama, but he didn’t just stop there.  He also told false statement about some other local public figures.  When some reporters were unable to substantiate what he was saying, the now fired Rick Tyler told the reporters, “Is it incumbent upon our [Cruz] campaign to do your basic info research?”

 

In this campaign, Cruz has stooped to sponsoring shady “robocalls” against Trump and Rubio, his group offered up a badly doctored image showing Rubio in a jubilant handshake with Obama with the words “The Rubio-Obama Trade Pact”, the Cruz’ operation has sent out bogus “voting violation” letters, and a Cruz staffer posted a false account of Rubio saying the Bible doesn’t “have many answers.”

 

When McCarthy went after other Republicans in the Eisenhower administration, he was eventually censured by the US Senate.  Perhaps that’s the same fate that Ted Cruz will hopefully receive from the current US Senate.  But I wouldn’t hold my breath. 

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016