#lyinted

23 May 2016; 8:31pm                        CRUZ and the TRUMPIAN

I’ve been sitting here watching Fox News, and enjoying the confrontation between Ted Cruz and a currently anonymous “Trumpian” at a Cruz rally in Indiana. I have to give both Mr. Cruz and the valiant protestor credit-Ted, for maintaining his composure and not letting the tone of his voice rise in frustration and anger, and the young Trumpian for firmly holding his ground; not letting Ted ‘suck him in’ to meaningless discussions.  At this level it was a draw.

HOWEVER...in the course of the 8 minute long exchange, I was struck with an epiphany; which comes as most unsettling. While Mr. Cruz heralds himself as the Protector of the Constitution, the Great White Knight of Conservatism and the protector of Mom and Apple Pie, it almost seems as if he’s been...TURNED.  Not so much idealogically, but rather, tactically; in that he’s now using the same ‘LESS-THAN-HONEST-AND-FAIR’ procedures to present himself as our opponents!  

I first noticed this towards the end, when he challenged his young tormentor to Google “Trump punch him in the face”; claiming that The Donald TOLD a person in the crowd to commit this act. Now, I watched that when it happened live, and it wasn’t how I remembered it (but of course, being in my 60’s, I’m told memory is the SECOND thing to go) ; so I did the Google lookup...and...what do you think I found? Mr. Trump was saying, “...I’d like to punch him in the face...”. Hmmm...interesting. Not quite what Ted said; aye?...and this is only ONE item. What about Ted saying that Donald hates the 2nd Amendment, and that he has no intention of ever “building a wall” (I’ve always thought of this more figuratively, as “sealing our borders”)? The list is rather long...ALL MISREPRESENTATIONS!

As a rather high-powered attorney, Mr. Cruz is certainly aware that a single word difference can change the entire meaning and perspective of a sentence; and that statements edited ‘out of context’ can be quite damning to the speaker. So it appears what we have here is a “staunch conservative” using the same “SOUND BYTE PSYCHOLOGY” the left has been using since the first morning dawned on the Cold War! This is NOT GOOD. It is little more than revisionist history done on the tactical level; changing the perception of your opponents’ statements to do him harm rather than confront them on a real point-to-point and issues-to-issues basis.  

We’ve seen a lot of this from the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi over the last 25 or so years. You might even say they ‘perfected’ the American version of the technique in the House and the Senate, then handed it off to the upper echelons of the Democrat party. It was practiced to some extent by Al Gore, particularly when speaking of global warming. It was used with great effect by Barack Obama in his campaigns and right through his entire reign. Hillary Clinton is something of a master at such ‘tactical editing’, but then, she’s had a lot of practice!

BUT I DIGRESS...I reckon my point is...if the conservative candidate is going to use the same tricks as our leftist opponents (and by so doing, roll in the same dirt), what makes him  (or US, by association) any different? Have we sunk so low that we believe the goodness of our ends justifies the evil of our means? If that be so, how & where does it stop?...and WHO will say when it should stop?

For me, this puts Mr. Cruz in an entirely new light. Up until today, I kinda thought he was one of the ‘good guys’; maybe just a bit difficult to get along with. Now I’m not so sure about that. He’s looking more like the next generation of the

ESTABLISHMENT...sneaky, disingenuous (yeah-a PC word to make it hit home!), and intent on getting things done HIS WAY or NO WAY, and the rest of us be damned!