Ted Cruz Embarrasses Himself and His Party

UPDATE BELOW



What is Texas Senator Ted Cruz trying to do except make a fool of himself and waste tax payers' money on his futile mission to defund the ACA?

As part of Texas's Congressional delegation, he is surely aware of how inadequately his home state has addressed the shame of having so many of his fellow Texans uninsured.  Yet, instead of working to remedy that disgrace and help those who need it the most, Cruz chose to grandstand and do all in his narcissistic power to make uninsured Americans' lives even more miserable than they already are.

We've seen these sorts of characters in American politics before, but the American public tires of them and rejects them once their circus performances are over. And how else can we describe these actions by this particular clownish senator from Texas, who compared the ACA to Nazism?  And who claimed that his mission to overturn it is comparable to JFK's putting a man on the moon?

Grandiosity, hubris, and just plain stupidity is a trait that runs deep in American politics, and Ted Cruz is the epitome of all three.  






The Embarrassment of Senator Ted Cruz


Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the public face of the aimless and self-destructive Tea Party strategy to stop health care reform, began an endless floor speech on Tuesday with the theme of “make D.C. listen.”

But even his Republican colleagues had long since stopped paying attention to his corrosive bombast, tired of his pious insults to his own party and unimpressed with his eagerness to shut down the government in pursuit of an ideological dream. 

Like hard-liners in the far right corner of the House, Mr. Cruz has grabbed for every possible lever in his campaign against President Obama’s health law, fully aware that he will not succeed but eager for the accolades and donations that will inevitably follow from the Tea Party’s misguided faithful. In the process, he has demonstrated how little he understands Senate rules and, more important, how little he appreciates the public’s desire for a collaborative Congress.

Here's what Ted Cruz and his fellow TeaPublicans are REALLY afraid of:


Tennessee's health insurance rates among lowest in U.S. on new exchanges

And this:


Government Releases Obamacare Premium Levels for 36 More States



UPDATE BY MATTHEW YGLESIAS

"What Ted Cruz Doesn't Understand About Green Eggs and Ham"

"As part of his fake filibuster today, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) read aloud the text of Dr. Seuss's book Green Eggs and Ham. It's a strange choice of author for a conservative senator. Admittedly, Green Eggs and Ham lacks the overt left-wing politics of a Butter Battle Book or The Lorax but this is still a progressive book. In broad strokes, it's a book advocating openness to experience—one of the key moral dimensions on which liberals and conservatives differ.

In the specific context of the health care debate, though, I'm reminded of Nancy Pelosi's much-mocked remark that "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

What she was expressing was the idea that while the health reform bill may not have been popular, the health reform law would prove popular in practice once it was in effect. People would like their subsidies and their regulatory protections, and wouldn't want to see them repealed. She was making, specificaly, a kind of Green Eggs and Ham argument. The narrator keeps insisting that he hates green eggs and ham, but he's neverhad green eggs and ham. When he finally tries them—he likes them!

The Democrats' bet on the Affordable Care Act is that it's like green eggs and ham—they're convinced the public will like it when they try it.

Conservatives like Cruz claim that this is wrong. That Americans will taste the green eggs and ham and they're going to hate it. But their actions speak otherwise. They're desperate to repeal the law before it's implemented."