Ted Cruz needs to get his mouth washed out with soap.

Or taken to the woodshed.

Or maybe sent to bed without his supper.

Hey, how about all three?

The young freshman U.S. senator from Texas — who’s seeking the Republican presidential nomination — did it once again. He uttered an inappropriate criticism at a leading Democrat at precisely the wrong time.

The man has no compassion filter … apparently.

Former President Carter announced this week he suffers from cancer. What did Cruz do? He punched Carter in the gut, using the standard GOP stump speech rhetoric about how bad things were in the late 1970s, when Carter was president.

“What I commented on was the public policy of the Carter administration in the 1970s, and it didn’t work,” Cruz said. “Millions of people hurt and as a result it sparked a grassroots movement to turn this country around. The same thing is happening because we’re seeing the same failed public policy.”

Couldn’t this young man have laid off the 39th president while the rest of us absorbed the terrible news about his very serious illness?

You’ll recall that a few days after Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Beau, died of brain cancer, Cruz poked fun at the vice president. That, too, was an inappropriate and tasteless remark and at the wrong time.

To his credit, Cruz did apologize to the vice president.

I believe another apology, to President Carter, is in order.