Ted Cruz Isn't Crazy – He's Much Worse

Ted Cruz Isn't Crazy – He's Much Worse

Cruz knows exactly what he's doing

BY JEB LUND December 4, 2015
Rollng Stone Magazine

For a long time, the left has had two caricatures of conservatives: that we are either stupid or evil," Ted Cruz is fond of saying. "I take it as a backhanded compliment that they have, to some extent, invented a third category for me: 'crazy.'" Porter Gifford/Corbis

In no particular order, Texas senator and Republican presidential aspirant Ted Cruz has: said acts of Christian terrorism stopped centuries ago, forgetting the Ku Klux Klan and the shooting in Colorado last week; claimed he has never met an anti-abortion activist who advocates violence, despite being endorsed by one just days before; dismissed the need for Planned Parenthood because there isn't a shortage of "rubbers" in America; and made an offhand comment that Colorado mass shooter Robert Dear could be a "transgendered leftist activist." All this in just the last week.

Cruz also has a favorite line he likes to use, which appears on the stump and in his book. "For a long time, the left has had two caricatures of conservatives: that we are either stupid or evil. I take it as a backhanded compliment that they have, to some extent, invented a third category for me: 'crazy.'" It's typical Cruz: both self-aggrandizing and distant from the truth, with a little temporizing statement ("to some extent") that rescues the self-aggrandizing part from being an outright lie. Either way, it's wrong.

Ted Cruz is far from crazy, which is the essential Ted Cruz problem. Crazy you can deal with, even forgive a little, often ignore. Ben Carson is a bowl of Froot Loops floating in a sad lethal pond of gasoline. Donald Trump went warp speed into the Trumpiverse decades ago. Both men have conducted their campaigns and recent years on perpetual tangents. But Ted Cruz knows exactly what he's doing. He doesn't even hide it particularly well. Not only is his intelligence one of his favorite selling points, his book undermines any notion that he misspeaks. He is gaffe proof because the gaffes are not arrived at by error. Ted Cruz does awful things by intelligent design.

Read more at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ted-cruz-isnt-crazy-hes-much-worse-20151204

Ted Cruz 2015