Ted Cruz’s New Book Blisters Mitch McConnell and Other Members of the RINO Surrender Caucus

Wherein I highlight some of the key findings of Ted Cruz's new book, starting with MSNBC, which I read so you don't have to subject yourself to the filmy and unhygienic commentary.

“During my time in the Senate, I’ve been amazed how many senators pose one way in public — as fiscal conservatives or staunch tea party supporters — and then in private do little or nothing to advance those principles,” Cruz says in his new book, “A Time for Truth.”

... The Texas senator titled the first chapter of his book “Mendacity,” and spends its pages cataloging the ways Senate Republicans betrayed him and the conservative movement he stands for.

“[O]ne particular Politico reporter often seems like he is Mitch McConnell’s press secretary; nearly every attack from leadership gets echoed and amplified in his stories.”

... The chapter casts Mitch McConnell as its chief villain, accusing the Senate Majority Leader of cowering in fights over the debt ceiling and Obamacare, too afraid of bad headlines from the liberal media to stand up for conservative principles. But McConnell isn’t portrayed as merely a coward — he’s also a tyrant, who threatens Cruz with media smears and withheld funding unless he, too, capitulates to the liberal agenda.

“The Republican leadership’s attacks are amplified and made more effective by using friendly media outlets,” Cruz wrote. “When leadership is displeased, they place hit pieces with journalists only too happy to cooperate. Indeed, so much so that one particular Politico reporter often seems like he is Mitch McConnell’s press secretary; nearly every attack from leadership gets echoed and amplified in his stories.”

... While Cruz focuses the brunt of his wrath on McConnell, he saves some ire for Kentucky’s other senator — Rand Paul, one of Cruz’s rivals for the GOP nomination in 2016.

In September of 2013, Cruz tried to rally Republicans around a quixotic plan to deny the federal government any funding unless large portions of the Affordable Care Act were defunded. Cruz gave a 21-hour speech from the Senate floor in an attempt to inspire his colleagues. His effort gained support from Utah Sen. Mike Lee, but Paul proved “notably less helpful,” according to Cruz’s account.

... “My friend Rand Paul came to the Senate floor to ask questions that seemed deliberately designed to undermine our efforts,” he says in his book. “His questions echoed the skeptical attacks of Mitch McConnell, and I marveled that Rand had decided not to be with us in this fight.”

... “In the 2016 primary, you’re going to have 15 candidates up there going, ‘I’m conservative. No, no, I’m conservative,’” Cruz told NPR on Monday. “I think the question Republican primary voters should ask is, ‘When have you stood up against the Washington cartel? When have you stood up against leaders in our own party?’”

Manu Raju relates that Mitch McConnell was and is the architect of 'failure theater':

...in the opening chapter of his book, Cruz calls out McConnell and his GOP colleagues for “chicanery” by publicly opposing an increase in the borrowing limit while privately trying to let the debt ceiling increase in 2014 without their fingerprints. When he told a California GOP donor in 2014 about the debt ceiling dispute, Cruz recalls the donor saying repeatedly: “The bastards.”

Speaking of Manu Raju, Cruz has a term to describe the Politico hack:

...Cruz went after Manu Raju from Politico—a reporter who often pushes a narrative that GOP leadership in Washington likes. Raju is hardly the only such reporter who pushes the establishment line from the pages of Politico—Jake Sherman is another one, but he tends to operate more on the House side of things pushing whatever Speaker Rep. John Boehner wants to talk about on any given day—but he’s the one who has personally printed countless articles in which anonymous sources in Washington attack Cruz and conservatives on Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell’s behalf...

...“Anonymous quotes appear in Capitol Hill publications from unnamed Republican sources—they’re usually Republican leadership staff members—wielding nasty personal insults,” Cruz writes in the book, providing several examples of such quotes.

“[Democratic candidate for governor of Texas] Wendy Davis has more balls than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)” one reads... Another: “Sen. Ted Cruz came here to throw bombs and fund-raise off of attacks on fellow Republicans. He’s a joke, plain and simple.” ... More: “He’s an amateur.” “A fraud.” “A hypocrite.” “A wacko bird.” “Jim DeMint without the charm.”

“All of those things were said by Republicans. And most of them were attributed to anonymous ‘senior GOP aides,’” Cruz writes, before exposing the actual process by which leadership uses publications like Politico and the Wall Street Journal to attempt to neutralize conservatism. In this paragraph, without putting his name but identifying him by citing one such article filled with Cruz scorn that makes it positively clear who he’s talking about, Cruz points to Politico’s Raju—and calls him “Sen. Mitch McConnell’s press secretary.” Cruz writes:

The Republican leadership’s attacks are amplified and made more effective by using friendly media outlets. When leadership is displeased, they place hit pieces with journalists only too happy to cooperate. Indeed, so much so that one particular Politico reporter often seems like he is Sen. Mitch McConnell’s press secretary; nearly every attack from leadership gets echoed and amplified in his stories. As this reporter noted after one Senate lunch (apparently without irony): ‘The closed‐door [Senate lunches] are supposed to be private . . . so senators interviewed for this article asked not to be named.’

As Roll Call reports, Cruz also called out the NRSC as a primary-focused, incumbent-protection fund.

The Texas Republican’s vice chairmanship of the party campaign committee was always a bit mysterious, and in his new book to be released Tuesday, Cruz contends that McConnell, the longtime Kentucky senator who faced perhaps the most vociferous tea party primary challenger of the year, said the NRSC would not be defending its own incumbents.

“When I mentioned to Mitch that if the NRSC had its way, every one of those four conservatives would have lost, he promised that the committee would stay out of primaries from here on out. He said he wanted to bring the tea party and the grassroots together with the GOP. I agreed with that goal and based on that commitment — to stay out of primaries — I signed up..."

"...But it soon became clear that the NRSC had every intention of supporting incumbents — in primaries — against conservative challengers across the country. And even in open races, it actively urged donors to give money to candidates opposing tea party conservatives,” Cruz said. “That didn’t sit right with me.”

As commenter Glorious Cause tells it, "If Karl Rove hates Cruz...you know he's doing something right!."
 
 
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