Bloggers all over the country should be rejoicing at the arrival of Ted Cruz to the U.S. Senate.
On the job just a few weeks and heâs already managed to:
* Wonder aloud whether the next defense secretary has been accepting speaking fees from radical groups.
* Question whether said defense boss-designate and the secretary of state â two decorated Vietnam War combat veterans â were âardentâ enough in their support of the military.
* Draw a rebuke from a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, himself a former Vietnam prisoner of war and a one-time Republican nominee for president of the United States, for âimpugningâ the integrity of the probable new defense secretary.
To be honest, although the grist mill may be clogged with material on which to comment as it spews from Ted Cruzâs mouth, it leaves me chagrined. Why? Cruz represents Texas, which I have called home for nearly 29 years.
I am going to hate listening to others ridicule my state merely because most Texas voters elected this guy to the Senate in November 2012. Late-night comics will have a field day. Liberal commentators will join them. And perhaps even some conservative pundits are going to grow weary over time of the kinds of statements Cruz utters. Theyâll become incensed that the Senateâs Republican elders will allow him to pop off as he has done with such regularity in so little time.
Used to be that Senate newcomers were to be seen and seldom heard. In this new age, though, new guys get to be seen and heard at the same time.
Itâs good for folks like me who need material with which to work.
But a part of me is holding out that Texasâs senior Republican senator, John Cornyn, takes the new fellow aside and schools him on matters of decorum, which I believe still counts for something in the Worldâs Greatest Deliberative Body.