Category Archives: national news

Sen. Cruz just isn’t ‘likeable’

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Readers of this blog know that I’ve spent a good bit of time over the past couple of years writing unflattering things about U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

I don’t apologize for any of it.

George W. Bush the other day more or less climbed on board with many of the rest of us when he said of the junior Republican senator from Texas, “I just don’t like the guy.”

The former president was speaking at a private fundraiser in Denver on behalf of his brother, GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush, against whom Cruz is competing for his party’s nomination.

Ah, likeability.

Mr. President, I don’t like him either.

I’ve struggled a bit to say precisely why I dislike Cruz. I’ve never met him; forgive me for saying this, but I have met President Bush and I find him amazingly likeable.

Cruz, though, presents a different situation. Maybe he’s a terrific fellow — in private. The public version of Cruz, though, is remarkably unlikeable.

He blew into the Senate in 2013 and immediately began hogging lots of TV time. The mainstream media love the guy. He’s what the media describe as “good copy.” He was everywhere, making pronouncements on this and that, speaking of the venerable Senate institution as if he’d been there since The Flood. The young man seems to lack any self-awareness of how it looks to some of us who have watched him pontificate about the Senate and his new colleagues.

He’s managed to antagonize even his fellow Republicans, such as John McCain, who chastised Cruz for questioning whether Defense Secretary-designate Chuck Hagel — a fellow Republican, former senator and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War — was sufficiently loyal to the United States of America. He’s called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and liar.

It’s all about Cruz.

Then he launched that presidential campaign of his barely a year after becoming a senator. I get that he’s not the first rookie congressional politician to reach for the brass ring. Barack Obama did it. JFK did, too. Heck, you even could say George W. Bush did, too, after serving only a term and a half in the only elective office he’d ever held — Texas governor — before being elected president in 2000.

It’s Cruz’s brashness, though, that seems so … umm … unlikeable.

Bush had it right when he blurted out to the political donors that he doesn’t like Sen. Cruz.

Does it matter that a president is likeable?

It matters to me. How about you?

 

Clinton was up, down, now she’s way up

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Hillary Clinton’s roller-coaster ride to the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination has taken an important turn.

The once-invincible Democratic front runner got scuffed up, battered and a bit bruised over all the chatter leading up to the House Benghazi committee hearing this week.

Then came some good news for the Clinton camp: Vice President Joe Biden decided he wouldn’t run for president in 2016; then the Republican-led Benghazi panel came apart at the seams as it sought to tar and feather the former secretary of state over her role in the tragic events that transpired at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

It’s pretty accurate to say that the Benghazi panelists didn’t land a single telling punch on Clinton.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, Clinton — to my eyes — looked like the only grownup in the congressional hearing room.

In the hour after the hearing adjourned, Clinton’s campaign set some kind of fundraising record. Money began pouring in.

Even pundits who tilt Republican, such as former GOP U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough, said the hearing was a bad day for the GOP and for Benghazi committee chairman Trey Gowdy.

I am thinking at this moment that Hillary Clinton is officially back on track to claiming the Democrats’ presidential nomination.

At this moment …

Tomorrow, of course, is another day.

 

Hillary Clinton: the only grownup in the room

hillary clinton

I didn’t watch every single moment of the House Benghazi Select Committee hearing today.

And as I write this blog post, it’s finishing up.

I do, though, want to make one point: The only grownup in the room among the principals involved in this hearing was the former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Democrats and Republicans on the panel went after each other like hyenas fighting over a carcass. Meanwhile, Clinton managed to stay above all that.

As for what I’ve heard among the questioners grilling Clinton, I need to say that I heard nothing new in either the questions or the answers given by the lone witness.

Which leads me to the source of the tension between committee members: the motive for the hearing in the first place.

Democrats allege that Republicans who control the House of Representatives have gone after Clinton over the Benghazi tragedy for a single purpose: to blow her presidential campaign out of the water. Indeed, many of the questions coming from the GOP side of the dais veered repeatedly into territory that’s been covered repeatedly during the several previous congressional hearings.

Democratic members, though, didn’t acquit themselves well, either, as they bitched repeatedly about their GOP colleagues’ conduct during this entire sorry episode.

“Benghazi” has become political shorthand for an incident that resulted on Sept. 11, 2012 in the deaths of four brave Americans during a firefight at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Clinton led the State Department at the time.

Three years after the fact and after countless hearings, testimony, investigation and posturing … Congress has found nothing.

The Benghazi panel’s conduct today shouldn’t make Congress proud.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s dignity, though, throughout this hearing demonstrated something quite different.

And commendable.

 

Rubio steps in it with Senate speech

Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., presides over Senate Foreign Relations Committee, subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, And Global Women's Issues hearing on overview of U.S. policy towards Haiti prior to the elections, Wednesday, July 15, 2015, on Capitol Hill in Washington.   (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

I’ve been all over the pea patch on this one, but I’ve decided to give U.S. senators seeking higher office a break … most of the time.

Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who’s running for president of the United States, has become the object of some criticism because of his lousy attendance record in the Senate. He’s been busy seeking the presidency and doesn’t have time to the job to which he was elected.

Hey, a guy can be only in one place at a time, right?

Rubio’s been absent a lot

I do not begrudge Rubio’s ambition to become commander in chief, leader of the Free World, the Man with the Veto Pen. Other senators are spending a lot of time on the road running for the White House: Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham. A couple of governors have gotten into some hot water back home for spending too much time away from the statehouse; Chris Christie and Scott Walker (before he dropped out of the race) come immediately to mind.

They all have the right to pursue the big prize.

Texas has had its share of senators aspiring to higher office. In addition to Cruz, we’ve had the likes of Lyndon Johnson and Lloyd Bentsen taking their fair share of time away from the job.

So, I’d say give Rubio a break. Leave him alone.

Except for this: Rubio took to the Senate floor to say, “All we’re saying here is if you work at the (Veterans Affairs Department) and aren’t doing your job, they get to fire you. This should actually be the rule in the entire government – if you aren’t not doing your job you should be fired.”

Ohhhh, Marco.

Dadgummit, young man. You shouldn’t have said such a thing.

 

Biden bows out with class, grace

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Vice President Joe Biden said a lot of things this morning when he bid farewell to any chance of becoming president of the United States.

I want to focus on one of those things.

He seemed to fire a shot across Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bow after the Democratic Party presidential frontrunner alluded to Republicans as her worst “enemy.”

Not so, said Joe.

Republicans aren’t the enemy. They are political adversaries, he said. He also noted that he retains many friends on the GOP side of the aisle and he indicated to whomever is elected president next year that the way to move the country forward is to end this kind of proverbial political hate speech emanating from both sides of the divide.

I don’t know who started this bitter rhetoric. At this point, I don’t really care. It’s gone on long enough.

The vice president’s call for a more civil discussion is precisely the kind of thing some of us out here have yearned for.

Biden: I will not be silent

Joe Biden is an honorable man. He has his faults, as does every human being who’s ever walked the planet.

The vice president’s “friends” on Fox News, for example, spent some time noting how he got caught during the 1988 presidential campaign stealing speech lines from British politician Neal Kinnock.

Over the years, the vice president’s verbosity has gotten him into trouble. I recall, for example, when CNN put a timer on him while he was supposed to be asking Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito a question during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Biden rambled on for 28 minutes, giving Alito precisely two minutes to answer a question that finally — finally! — came out of the then-senator’s mouth.

But the vice president has served his nation with honor and with great conviction. He’s also weathered intense personal grief, starting with the death of his wife and daughter in that terrible car crash between the time of his 1972 election to the Senate and when he took office; then this year he mourned the death of his beloved son, Beau, from brain cancer.

He’s also sought to mind his manners — most of the time — when talking about policy differences with his Republican opponents.

Message to the politicians who’ll be around when Joe Biden departs the scene in January 2017: How about taking the hint that the vice president dropped on you today? Let’s cut the “enemy” crap.

Well stated, Mr. Vice President.

 

 

Where was VPOTUS on the bin Laden raid?

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Vice President Joe Biden is known for a lot of things: authenticity, verbosity, good humor, commitment to public policy.

He’s not known as a prevaricator.

Still, if the vice president is going to run for the top job — and I’m not yet convinced he’s going to do so — he’s got to clear up a serious matter.

What was his view on the raid to kill terrorist leader Osama bin Laden? Was he for it or not?

Biden is sending a mixed message regarding the bin Laden raid, which in May 2011 ended with bin Laden being shot to death by a Navy SEAL commando in Pakistan.

It’s been reported that he wanted to wait “for two more things” to occur before sending in the commandos and that he gave that advice to President Obama. Now he says he was for it all along.

I see some language-parsing on the horizon, which doesn’t answer the question about what he endorsed and when he endorsed it.

If he was in favor of the raid at the beginning, but wanted to wait for further confirmation that bin Laden was holed up in that big house in Pakistan, then it’s OK to say so.

Let’s not play games, Mr. Vice President. Give it to us straight.

Then you can let us all know whether you want to run for president.

 

W said what … about Sen. Cruz?

UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 16:  U.S. President George W. Bush waves upon arrival at RAF Aldgerove in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Monday, June 16, 2008. Gordon Brown, U.K. prime minister said Britain is pushing the European Union to impose new sanctions against Iran, including freezing the assets of its biggest bank, to pressure the nation to give up its nuclear program at a press conference with Bush in London today.  (Photo by Paul McErlane/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

George W. Bush can be full of surprises at times.

The former president was attending a fundraiser in Denver over the weekend to raise money for his brother, Jeb — who’s running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Then he lobbed a grenade: “I just don’t like the guy.”

“The guy” is fellow Texan — and a GOP presidential foe of Jeb Bush — Sen. Ted Cruz.

Politico reported Bush’s feelings about Cruz and noted that many in the audience were stunned by the former president’s statement. As the Texas Tribune reported:  “I was like, ‘Holy sh-t, did he just say that?’ I remember looking around and seeing that other people were also looking around surprised.”

Others have suggested that Cruz’s criticism of Jeb Bush, not to mention his criticism of the former president’s policies, has contributed to the antipathy against the fiery freshman senator from Texas.

Again, as the Tribune reports, quoting an observer who heard the comments: “He sort of looks at this like Cruz is doing it all for his own personal gain, and that’s juxtaposed against a family that’s been all about public service and doing it for the right reasons. He’s frustrated to have watched Cruz basically hijack the Republican Party of Texas and the Republican Party in Washington.”

Hijack the GOP? Gee. Do ya think? The guy storms into office, grabs the first microphone within reach and starts bellowing about how the Senate Republican caucus isn’t conservative enough, doesn’t confront Democrats enough, doesn’t do enough to push the ultra-conservative agenda that Cruz and other TEA Party favorites desire.

Welcome to the club, Mr. President.

 

Bush channels Billy Jeff

Jeb  Bush

Jeb Bush seems to be channeling William Jefferson Clinton in trying to explain how President George W. Bush “kept us safe” from terrorist attacks.

You remember when Billy Jeff tried to explain the definition of the word “is.”

The former Florida governor, who’s running for the Republican presidential nomination, is struggling with the reality that the 9/11 attacks occurred on George W.’s watch. Thus, he is responsible — as commander in chief — for the failure to protect us against terror attacks.

Bush is correct, though, to assert that since the attacks the United States remained safe. President Bush and Congress created a new Cabinet agency — the Department of Homeland Security — and gave it specific authority to devise a strategy to prevent future terrorist attacks.

Bush says W kept us safe

It doe no good to quibble over the definition of “keeping us safe” and arguing over whether we mean pre-9/11 or post-9/11.

The attacks occurred nine months into George W. Bush’s presidency. There’s no denying that, right? Nor is there any denying that the president did rally the country behind the initial effort to go after the terrorists in their Afghanistan hideouts — and to take down the government in Kabul that was supporting them.

The unity evaporated when we went to war … in Iraq.

Did the 43rd president keep the nation safe? Yes — after the attacks that killed 3,000 innocent victims and changed the nation forever.

 

Bush seeks to dodge 9/11 responsibility

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CNN’s Jake Tapper might have asked the most incisive and insightful question of the 2016 president campaign.

Over the weekend on “State of the Union,” Tapper asked former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush the following question: “Obviously Al Qaeda was responsible for the terrorist attack of 9/11, but how do you respond to critics who ask, if your brother and his administration bear no responsibility at all, how do you then make the jump that President Obama and Secretary Clinton are responsible for what happened at Benghazi?”

Gov. Bush answered this way: “Well I — the question on Benghazi which, is hopefully we’ll now finally get the truth to, is was the place secure? They had a responsibility, the Department of State, to have proper security. There were calls for security, it looks like they didn’t get it. And how was the response in the aftermath of the attack, was there a chance that these four American lives could have been saved? That’s what the investigation is about, it’s not a political issue. It’s not about the broad policy issue, is were we doing the job of protecting our embassies and our consulates and during the period, those hours after the attack started, could they have been saved?”

Did you follow the former governor’s answer? I had trouble getting the connection.

Bush once was thought to be the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination next year. He’s no longer the front runner, based in part on the stumble-bum answers he’s given to questions regarding whether President Bush — Jeb’s big brother — was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Gov. Bush said his brother “kept us safe” during his presidency. Hmmm. The loved ones of the 3,000 or so Americans who died on that terrible day might disagree with that view.

The attack occurred nine months into Bush’s presidency. He had been briefed by national security advisers about the threat that al-Qaeda posed. He was warned in advance about the possibility of an attack. The massive intelligence apparatus that we employed did not do its job in protecting the nation.

Is that the president’s responsibility? Well, gosh, it seems that the commander in chief ought to be held accountable. However, Gov. Bush chooses to avoid holding his brother accountable for that breakdown.

As for Tapper’s question, it still requires some clarity in the answer.

If George W. Bush doesn’t deserve blame for the tragedy that befell us on 9/11, how can Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama be held responsible for the Benghazi attack that occurred 11 years later to the day?

Is there a double-standard being applied?

 

Gowdy to GOP colleagues: ‘Shut up’ about Benghazi

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I love the comment from House Select Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy to his Republican colleagues.

“Shut up” about things about which you know nothing, says the South Carolina Republican.

They know nothing? Or do they know, um, too much?

Hillary Clinton is going to testify this week before the House panel about the fire fight in September 2012 at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Four brave Americans died in the melee, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

Republicans have been trying like the dickens for more than three years to find enough dirt on Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, to pin something on her. They’ve accused her of covering something up.

They’ve come up empty … so far.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy then popped off about the reason the committee was formed, noting that Clinton’s poll numbers have plunged since the panel began its work; his comments seemed to most observers to suggest the motive for the committee being formed in the first place was to torpedo Clinton’s presidential campaign.

And then came Rep. Richard Hanna, another GOP colleague, to say the same thing that McCarthy said. D’oh! There’s another one: Bradley Podliska, a former GOP staffer — who worked for the Benghazi committee — also said the same thing. He doesn’t know, Mr. Chairman?

Clinton’s testimony could sink her campaign. It could lift it to new heights. As some folks have noted, the Benghazi hearings have gone on longer than the House Watergate hearings and the Warren Commission hearings looking into JFK’s assassination.

One of these days, hopefully before the presidential nominating conventions next year, the Benghazi panel will wrap this up, publish its findings and then we can move on.