{"id":17422,"date":"2013-03-11T10:27:04","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T14:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=17422"},"modified":"2013-03-11T11:41:29","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T15:41:29","slug":"ted-cruz-boffo-not-wacko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/17422\/ted-cruz-boffo-not-wacko\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Cruz: Boffo, not &#8216;Wacko&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a remarkable editorial six weeks ago, The NYT <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/01\/21\/opinion\/a-choice-for-republican-leaders.html?_r=1&amp;\" target=\"_blank\">attacked<\/a> new U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), arguing the Republican Party &#8220;should marginalize lawmakers like Mr. Cruz.&#8221; Last week, the hyper-mercurial (to put it kindly) John McCain included Cruz among the group of younger lawmakers he labeled as &#8220;wackos.&#8221; Very nice. Those are both the sorts of non-endorsements that should make Cruz a hero among all correct-thinking Americans.<\/p>\n<p>With last week&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Jsy01ljGcy0&amp;feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\">strong questioning<\/a> of AG Eric Holder, then on the Senate floor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cruz.senate.gov\/record.cfm?id=339940\" target=\"_blank\">supporting<\/a> Rand Paul&#8217;s filibuster as the second longest speaker (about two hours), and now with his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/blog\/inside-politics\/2013\/mar\/6\/cruz-defund-obamacare-until-economy-improves\/\" target=\"_blank\">amendment<\/a> to defund Obamacare, which is <a href=\"http:\/\/heritageaction.com\/key-votes\/yes-on-the-cruz-amendment\/\" target=\"_blank\">rallying conservatives<\/a> and gaining support from Senate Republicans (so far Lee, Paul, Rubio, and Inhofe, plus supportive comments from Mitch McConnell), Sen. Cruz &#8212; along with his friends Rand Paul and Mike Lee &#8212; is emerging as a smart, proactive force on policy and message. And, despite the howls from the likes of McCain and Chris Matthews (again, birds of a feather), there is not a thing that Cruz has done or said that, in any reasonable context, have been remotely objectionable (as National Review noted here, saying Cruz had &#8220;ably and aggressively executed his duty as a United States senator).<\/p>\n<p>Cruz also has put together a staff of rising conservative superstars (who I won&#8217;t list here because good staffers usually are loathe to draw attention away from their boss), more than a few of whom I know personally to be among the savviest and most principled of public servants.<\/p>\n<p>All of which is to say that this new senator continues to bear watching, and applauding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a remarkable editorial six weeks ago, The NYT attacked new U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), arguing the Republican Party &#8220;should marginalize lawmakers like Mr. Cruz.&#8221; Last week, the hyper-mercurial (to put it kindly) John McCain included Cruz among the group of younger lawmakers he labeled as &#8220;wackos.&#8221; Very nice. Those are both the sorts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[837,768,422,2890],"class_list":["post-17422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-chris-matthews","tag-mccain","tag-national-review","tag-ted-cruz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17422"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17426,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17422\/revisions\/17426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}