Liberals Skewer Conservative Senator Ted Cruz–He’s Doing Something Right!

FRANK CAMP

Denis Diderot said: “Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.” A machine is designed to function in the same way every time it is used. If there was a chance that your dishwasher would leak water half of the times you used it; you’d get a new dishwasher. America, however, wasn’t designed to be a machine, despite what many may think. Washington was designed with the intent of flexibility, so as to avoid entrenched corruption. Elections, term limits, impeachment, recall elections; these are all safeguards against corruption. Despite those safeguards, corruption has deeply infected our political landscape. Washington has become a cartel, filled with career criminals, thirsting for power. So when one person–in this case, one man–comes out with aggression against the political machine, he should be celebrated. 

 

Ted Cruz, in his short time in office, has rocked the establishment Republicans and summarily freaked out the Democrats. The measure of a successful Conservative is how much hatred they accrue from the Liberal Left. Ted Cruz’s cup overflows with the Left’s rage.

 

In his short tenure, Cruz has introduced a bill to repeal Obamacare in full, battled Rahm Emanuel over Rahm’s campaign against gun sellers, voted against John Kerry for Secretary of State, and stood against the bi-partisan immigration reform joke proposed by the gang of eight. In short, Cruz has proved to be reliably conservative. This, of course, has upset the Left.

 

Ruth Marcus, of The Washington Post, is one of several journalists going for Cruz’s jugular. In Thursday’s Op-Ed, Marcus makes no qualms about her disdain for Cruz, saying this in regard to his questioning of Chuck Hagel: “As the committee chairman, Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, pointed out, Cruz was attempting to unilaterally rewrite committee rules, which require two years of financial information, instead of the five Cruz demanded. And Cruz’s sleazy innuendos about hidden foreign money are undercut by a separate requirement to disclose any transactions with a foreign government — going back 10 years.”

 

Now, Ted Cruz is demanding that Hagel provide financial records beyond the two years required of him. Due to past incidents in which Hagel made comments that were considered by many to be anti-Semitic; and due to Hagel’s position on direct talks with Iran, and Israel’s standing in relation to the US; Ted Cruz–as well as other Senators–has some legitimate concerns.

 

In addition to that, Hagel has quite a bad reputation amongst former staff members. According to Adam Kredo, of The Free Beacon: “‘Yes, Hagel has crazy positions on several key issues. Yes, Hagel has said things that are borderline anti-Semitism. Yes, Hagel wants to gut the Pentagon’s budget. But above all, he’s not a nice person and he’s bad to his staff,’ said a senior Republican Senate aide who has close ties to former Hagel staffers…Chuck Hagel may have been collegial to his Senate colleagues but he was the Cornhusker wears Prada to his staff, some of whom describe their former boss as perhaps the most paranoid and abusive in the Senate, one who would rifle through staffers desks and berate them for imagined disloyalty”

 

According to The Concord Monitor: In 2009, Chuck Hagel, along with several others, wrote a letter to President Obama “urging him to open negotiations with Hamas.”

 

Because of all these factors, Senator Cruz has some concerns–and rightly so. Cruz said this: “I will point out that right now this committee knows absolutely nothing about the personal compensation Chuck Hagel received in 2008 and 2009 or 2010…We do not know, for example, if he received compensation for giving paid speeches at extreme or radical groups. In my view, given the two letters he received, it is a fair inference to assume that he and those handling his nomination assembled that information, assembled his compensation, and the only reasonable inference, I think, is when they assembled it, there was something in there that they did not want to make public. It may be that he spoke at radical or extreme groups or anti-israel groups and accepted financial compensation. We don’t know.”

 

Given Hagel’s peculiar positions regarding Israel, Iran, and what are widely regarded as anti-Semitic statements he has made in the past, Ted Cruz has every right to push for more information, especially because Hagel is being nominated for Defense Secretary. 

 

Lastly, it seems hypocritical for Liberals to be attacking Cruz for demanding financial records. May I point back to demands being made of one Mr. Romney not several months ago on much weaker grounds?

 

The fact that Ted Cruz has rankled Liberals, and even fellow Republicans, like John McCain, is enough for me to support him in full. This, on top of his stellar Freshman record, push Cruz to the front-runner spot in my 2016 Republican presidential pool.