Texas Sen. Ted Cruz had an interesting answer to a question from Dallas Morning News writer Todd Gillman last week:
Q. Is [former Sen. Joseph] McCarthy someone you admire?
A. I’m not going to engage in the back and forth and the attacks. Several Democrats have demonstrated a willingness to attack me by name. I’m not going to engage in that argument. I’m going to stay focused on what I think Texans want me to stay focused on, which is the substance of the job.
He couldn’t just say “no”?
As Gillman notes in the interview, numerous observers — including fellow senators — have been comparing Sen. Cruz to McCarthy, whose reckless smears and Red-baiting in the 1950s are infamous.
In recent years far-right activists have been defending McCarthy. In fact, former Texas State Board of Education chairman Don McLeroy claimed in 2009 that McCarthy “was basically vindicated.” And sure enough, the state board’s far-right members succeeded in revising the state’s public school curriculum standards for social studies to suggest just that. In fact, a report from the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which slammed the state’s new standards as a “politicized distortion of history” with “misrepresentations at every turn,” had this to say about the standards’ treatment of McCarthyism:
“It is disingenuously suggested that the House Un-American Activities Committee—and, by extension, McCarthyism—have been vindicated by the Venona decrypts of Soviet espionage activities (which had, in reality, no link to McCarthy’s targets).”
And now Sen. Cruz seems reluctant simply to say that he doesn’t admire the disgraced Joseph McCarthy. Interesting, to say the least.
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This problem ranks right up there with the program of disinformation regarding Benghazi, Libya. We cannot help but wonder why the far right seeks to revise history to the extent that instead of being a disgraced and loathsome individual, Joe McCarthy is now being lauded as a patriotic and honourable American.
Ted Cruze, isn’t he one of the Senators who came to Rand Paul’s aid while championing Civil Liberties in the recent filibuster?
The question is, is Ted Cruz going to turn enough Texans off the GOP to help flip Texas blue in the 2016 presidential race?
Yes, Texans screwed up BIG TIME when they elected Cruz.
There wasn’t much choice as usual.
Bill — There was another candidate in the election last November. His name is Paul Sadler. He is greatly qualified, but underfunded. Democrats simply don’t have the money to adequately fund their candidates. Rich Republicans lavish donations on their candidates and underwrite big fundraising events that demand exorbitant fees to meet GOP candidates and hear them speak.
Some voters were fooled into voting for Cruz because he has a Spanish surname.
BTW, he’s not eligible to run for president. He was not born in the United States or a U.S. territory. His mother’s citizenship has no bearing on his citizenship. The individuals who are trying to claim Cruz is eligible because his mother was a U.S. citizen are the birthers [who allege that Pres. Obama was born in Kenya] who are saying that President Obama is not eligible to be our president — even though his mother was a U.S. citizen. Can you say hypocrisy? Just sayin’.
Ted Cruz is McCarthy reincarnated. This is why he will not speak harshly about McCarthy. Cruz believes McCarthy was right in everything he did and said. It’s a sad day for Texas when idiots on the school board down here put glowing comments about the worst Senator in history, Joe McCarthy, and even more sad that Cruz acts just like him.