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Ted Cruz, Weasel
On my first viewing, I was quite moved by this:
Ted Cruz: "I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father." https://t.co/LMsN84Z2IT
— CNN (@CNN) July 21, 2016
On my second, I realized a very serious problem with it: By implication, Ted Cruz was fine — absolutely fine — with Trump mocking Ben Carson’s faith, a reporter’s physical handicap, and John McCain’s torture. And that’s just the stuff off the top of my head.
If Cruz had said “Trump’s attacks on my family opened my eyes to his abuses and I repent that I didn’t take a stand against them when others were similarly attacked” then I’d be really moved. As it is… Look, I’m glad to see someone show some spine, but I really wish it wasn’t so nakedly self-interested.
Published in General
Agree – that would have been a great speech.
Let’s be honest, if we were going to hold Carson to the same standard to which we hold Cruz, Carson would never have been considered a serious candidate in the first place. That said, I do remember quite a bit ridicule directed toward Carson
Why should Ted Cruz be responsible for defending someone who doesn’t care enough to defend themselves.
So I hate breaking Godwin’s law, but I’d like to ask if you think Claus Stauffenberg did a bad thing when he violated his oath of loyalty to the Furer?
Circumstances changed. At that point Trump had not insulted his wife, accused his father of murder, and engaged in Cruz birtherism. Have you never said something or made a promise you later broke because circumstances changed?
Having just watched the Trumpster’s acceptance speech – why am I unconsciencely thinking of the word ‘mussolini’? Can’t get it out of my head. And Mussolini was in black & white.
Isn’t the entire Trump phenomenon based on anger?
pretty much.
I feel like this brings us full circle to the OP.
Things changed: When Trump criticized other people, Cruz felt that Trump did not have a character problem that prevented Cruz from promising to endorse him. When the target shifted to Cruz, Cruz reevaluated Trump’s character.
In other words, it wasn’t about Trump. It was about Cruz.
No one is suggesting that Cruz should have defended Carson in the way that Cruz defended Trump. The question is why he was ready to commit to endorsing Trump when Trump was saying vile things about other people.
Perhaps you could cite the place in the OP where he says that Cruz should have defended others. I read that he shouldn’t have committed to endorsing Trump if Trump behaving like an animal was a disqualifying trait. Alternatively, he should have said that he was wrong to give his word and that, on reflection, he should have taken the attacks on McCain, Carson, etc. more seriously. That doesn’t mean defending them.
If Cruz had felt that he couldn’t endorse Trump, he wouldn’t have had to defend Carson; he could have pointed to any number of problems with Trump and said that they meant that Donald was a bridge too far. It’s not as if all that many Republican primary voters would have thought a non-endorsement of Trump was a deal breaker.
They had no ability to mandate it; hence Trump didn’t for a while and then later reneged. The party is not a dictatorship. They asked for it.
South Carolina is something of an exception. They did demand that people pledge in order to run. Had Cruz felt that he couldn’t endorse Trump, though, he could have netted as many delegates by skipping SC as he got by going, and he’d have denied a fair few to Trump.
The RNC was keen that he commit to endorse earlier, but it was even keener that he kept his word later. He’s his own man, though. The RNC could persuade him to give his word, but it’s apparently a tougher request to get him follow through.
A few thoughts:
Yes, and my point is that — Cruz aside — all of these people came to their positions before Trump made personal attacks against their families. I happily concede that Cruz’s position in this was unique, but I don’t think that quite covers it.
I’m okay with it, though you are making me think that my initial title — “One Cheer for Ted Cruz” — might have been better (I rejected it on the grounds of “OMG, not that cliche”).
If Cruz had said that, at this point, a complaint (although perhaps not your complaint, Tom) would have been “Oh, how convenient, that you have your eyes opened so you can now undermine the Republican nominee.”
By keeping his specific complaint against Trump on the personal level, Cruz refrained from giving the overt appearance of trying to lead a movement against Trump, at this time. (Someone else made this point earlier in the conversation.) “I have a personal gripe with the guy, so I can’t bring myself to cheer for him, but you don’t have the same personal gripe so I’m not going to try to tell you what you should do.”
Nothing is perfect about this, and it is possible that Cruz may be a weasel, but this incident is not evidence of that.
I don’t recall? Was Rand Paul still in the race when the RNC pushed the infamous pledge? If not: Cruz was under some pressure to “go along” that these others weren’t.
I don’t think Cruz should have been responsible for others, or have been the debate’s schoolmarm; after all, Kasich was available, yes? ;)
Again, though, my point is that what apparently mattered wasn’t that Donald Trump made belittling personal attacks on others, but that some of those attacks were against people named Heidi and Raphael Cruz. Am I glad to see Cruz show some spine? Yes. I’m I impressed with his reasons for it? Not really.
Fair point.
Paul took the pledge in August and pulled out in February. Cruz wasn’t forced, kicking and screaming, to go with the RNC’s efforts to encourage support for Trump. Cruz led the effort to protect Trump. No one in the race was as supportive of Trump as Cruz was in August, with the possible exception of Trump’s campaign staff. It was possibly more interesting that he’d endorse Bush.
The later affirmations, the “when I give my word for something, I follow through and do what I said” weren’t dictated to him by Priebus; that was an entirely voluntary response to a journalist.
Ben Carson is a competitor same as the others. Still no need for Cruz to get involved in it.
You have no argument from me that Cruz’s tactic of aligning himself early with Trump in anticipation of Trump’s implosion turned out to be poor. At the time I thought it made sense.
That still does not place a requirement on Cruz to defend Carson or the media and definitely does not make him a weasel.
Could you cite the passage where Tom says that Cruz should have defended Carson rather than saying that Cruz either shouldn’t have promised to endorse him or should have suggested that he was wrong not to have seen that he shouldn’t have endorsed him?
James, I stand by my reading of the OP.
Your beloved party pressured all the candidates to pledge. @jamielockett has it correct.
Yes, Kasich.
His state hosted the convention, and somehow he couldn’t find his way there. That’s very lame. And not supportive of his state, never mind the candidate. And it was rude, I think.
Couple that with the fact that, in relation to all the other candidates, Trump probably fired the fewest shots at Kasich, all the way to the end. In fact, I can really only think of one.
So why did Kasich stay away?
If he stayed away just because Trump said he was a slob and ate like a pig, that really does sound rather childish to me.
I am fascinated by all this talk about how ‘petty’ it is for Cruz to claim that Trump’s ongoing and lavish insults and lies played a role in Cruz’s decision not to endorse him.
Forget Cruz for a minute.
Just think, in the abstract: Is there a point at which personal insults, character assassination, and untrue personal and family smears from one candidate to another become so egregious that responding to them with the words “I will not endorse . . .” can be viewed as a principled stand in itself, and not simply as thin-skinned immaturity and pettiness?
Perhaps we need an Oxford-style debate, one side of which is
Resolved: There is no level of outrageous personal or family insult, lie, smear, conspiracy theory or any other manifestly politically motivated untruth that can be directed at one politician by another which should prevent the object of said smears from ultimately setting them aside and endorsing his opponent in the name of party unity.
Is that where we are? A free-for-all?
Many people have been commenting on this. And, again, I am a reluctant Trump supporter. I do, however, know enthusiastic Trump supporters.
The Trump phenomenon is based in resentment and disgust. If you’d like to call that anger, then it is a cold anger. What Cruz showed was a hot anger.
It is not necessary to be impressed with the reasons given. Many of us suspect the reasons given aren’t the whole story, after all – that Cruz is making a concession to party unity by claiming the reasons are “only personal” and declining to say all he really thinks.
That Cruz should ever shut up about something for the purposes of party unity is, according to some people, practically impossible, and might be thought “impressive” in that sense, but of course it isn’t: being able to hold your tongue at least sometimes in order to preserve the peace is sort of a minimal requirement for being a decent human being. All in all, that may be a positive sign (though still not “impressive”), since tongue-holding for the sake of comity is generally a trait Cruz advertises himself as not having, at least where political matters are concerned.
Was it decent of Cruz to indulge Trump as long as he did in the primaries? No. Was it decent for Cruz to even agree to make Wednesday’s speech? People evidently disagree on that. But given he did both those things, his “justification” for doing so seems about as decent as can be managed.
For a change, then!
That Trump had the “hot” anger, and Cruz the cold, calculated fury may have played a role in primary voters picking Trump. Erica Grieder, a reporter who’s followed Cruz for years, has noted that one of Cruz’s oddities is no matter his discomfort, he’s so bizarrely composed. (Can relate to being too composed in extremis, and that being that way can cause problems, including the assumption that one is untruthful.)
What’s funny is that I know Trump supporters who admire Trump for not being the kind of guy that “just takes it”, and who get furious if they’re expected to “just take” even fairly minor (to the point of being unintended) personal slights. I do not wish to generalize this to all Trump supporters, especially the reluctant ones, but among the more enthusiastic, the idea that one should not overlook perceived personal slights appears to have some traction when the personal slights don’t come from Trump.
Or, “Donald, Republicans are counting on you!” Hearing Cruz use “we” would have been a bit much.
Do you have any evidence for party pressure on Cruz or is this information internally sourced? I don’t think that Cruz was reluctant to say that he’d endorse Trump; he made if very clear that he didn’t think that Trump was out with the bounds of the acceptable party to him. Also, I don’t think he thought that Trump was plausibly going to win.