What Was Ted Cruz Thinking?

I’ve been a fan of Ted Cruz long before he ran for office. We first met about 2008 when he was an attorney in private practice. He would give occasional luncheon speeches for my employer, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. I was amazed. As I told my wife at the time, every word that came out of his mouth sounded like it had been planned 10 minutes earlier. He knew not only exactly what he was saying, but also exactly why he was saying it. And he had a very good grasp of how his words would be taken by his audience.

That is why I was so astounded when I heard him call the January 6 break-in at the U.S. Capitol a violent terrorist attack. It simply made no sense. Senator Cruz is simply not someone who “misspeaks.” What, then, could he have been thinking?

I’m not the only one who had the same reaction. Here is part of an excellent piece on this by another Ted Cruz fan, Roger Kimble:

I was appalled. Nor was I the only one. The Trump-friendly commentariat erupted in outrage. Tucker Carlson, a longtime admirer of Cruz, excoriated him on his show. Both in response to Carlson and in a public announcement, Ted Cruz endeavored to backtrack. “It was a mistake to say that yesterday,” Cruz plaintively insisted. By “terrorists” he meant not the protesters but “the limited number of people who engaged in violent attacks against police officers.”

Carlson wasn’t having it. A thug who attacks a police officer is a criminal who should be arrested, indicted and jailed. But he is not a “terrorist.” There was also the whole tenor of Cruz’s remarks — the invocation of a “solemn anniversary,” praise for the Capitol police, many of whom behaved very badly that day (remember Ashli Babbitt? She was the unarmed woman who was shot by a Capitol Hill police officer). In brief, Ted Cruz implicitly bolstered the false Democratic narrative about January 6. Why he did this is a mystery.

I do believe that Tucker Carlson was right when he observed that no one chooses his words more carefully than Ted Cruz. He must have known what the rhetorical effect of his words would be. I suspect he now rues what he said. But that does not excuse it. I wish he hadn’t given such aid and comfort to the people posing the real threat to what Nancy Pelosi likes to call “our democracy.”

Tucker Carlson took Cruz to the woodshed over this:

Cruz said he used “sloppy language.” Carlson said he didn’t believe him. For the same reason I noted above; Ted Cruz NEVER uses sloppy language.

Neither Kimble nor Carlson speculated why Cruz said what he said. And Cruz himself offered no explanation other than the sloppy language reference. So why did he say it?

Back when Cruz first ran for the U.S. Senate, I had friends whose opinions I deeply value saying that Cruz was not the conservative he was running as. Yet despite the fact that he is not quite as bold today as when he was surrounded by Chip Roy and company, Cruz has never showed any hint of not being a solid conservative. Until now. Which means the only thing that makes sense to me is that Sen. Cruz has been in office too long.

Rarely have I seen a politician capable of surviving the assault on his/her character of being an elected official. Over time, it overtakes almost all of even the best of them. The constituents of the system at various times pander to them, lie to them, attack them, bribe them, or do whatever is needed to maintain the wealth and power that comes with being connected to our massively funded modern governments at all levels. Besides the harm done to the American public of all this, another good reason for term limits is to force out the few good men and women who get into politics before they lose their integrity.

Now, I do not know if this is what has happened to Ted Cruz. I hope it is not; Cruz’s conservativism and integrity were what made him the only viable alternative to Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican Primary. Unfortunately, it was also his conservatism and integrity that kept all those “Never Trump” Republicans from rallying behind him. As much as they disliked Trump, they hated Ted Cruz for being the true conservative they were not. And Cruz and Ron Desantis are still likely the only real conservatives with a shot at the nomination in 2024 (don’t get me wrong; I appreciated a lot about what Trump did in his four years, but he not really a conservative).

I am afraid, though, that even if Cruz has not gone native I’ll never get another chance to vote for him as president. I liken his calling the mostly peaceful protest as violent terrorist attack to what Rick Perry did in 2011 when he called those pushing for more restraints on illegal immigration “heartless.” Everyone thinks Perry shot himself in the foot on his “senior moment” when he forgot the name of an agency he wanted to abolish. But the polling clearly showed that his campaign for president was over the minute he showed himself soft on immigration. He never recovered.

Despite Cruz declaring he made a mistake, I suspect that he is finished as a presidential candidate. Too many Republican primary voters have become aware of the corruption ingrained throughout all levels of our government. And particularly about the evil that exists within the FBI, the Department of Justice, and Congress. And I do not think they will trust anyone who however briefly used the same language about January 6 and Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Liz Chaney. I could be wrong, and even hope I am wrong–as long as my speculation about what Cruz said is also wrong.