"Don't you love farce? My fault, I fear
I thought that you'd want what I want, sorry, my dear
But where are the clowns, send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here."
----Judy Collins "Send In The Clowns" (1)
Query: What looks like Joe McCarthy, talks like Joe McCarthy, acts like Joe McCarthy and smells like Joe McCarthy? Answer: Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
One of the most strident "Birthers" and a Tea-Bagging darling Cruz has, in his short tenure in the Senate managed to outrage not only his natural political opponents, but many of the old-line conservatives within his own party. Author last year of the "partial shut-down" of the Federal Government, a stunt which cost the taxpayer of this country 24 billion dollars, Cruz has proven himself a take-no-prisoners advocate of the hard-wrong ideology. He stands as a sublime example of animated ignorance, malignancy on steroids.
He has been a strident opponent of everything our president stands for, obstructing presidential nominations, undermining treaty negotiations, even joining the "Birthers" in questioning Obama’s country of birth and therefore his citizenship. The delicious irony is, of course, that Cruz himself, like Marco Rubio is foreign born. In this case he was born in Canada. Son of an American citizen he, nevertheless, was not born in this country leading some within his own Tea-bagger movement to question whether he is qualified to become President of the United States.
Cruz, seeking to export the madness that is right-wing Texas politics, chose a carefully orchestrated presentation before a ‘captive’ audience at the citadel of American political reaction, Jerry Farwell’s "Liberty" University. Before a packed house, attendance by the student body required in lieu of fine, Cruz belched forth a full-throated cry to ‘repeal every word of ObamaCare’ as well as institute a litany of reactionary measures including the ‘abolition of the IRS’, a national sales tax, cuts in the social safety net.
One must be careful to heed the wisdom and the advice from one who has been jettisoned by the country of his birth and cast, like so much flotsam upon the ocean currents to wash up upon our shores. Native Americans will warn you that it is, perhaps, not wise to take them in. The ranting of Cruz’s father, Rafael Sr. have become viral on the internet of late giving the country not only a glimpse of the environment in which the Senator was raised, but a clear indication of perhaps why our good neighbor to the north sent them packing. One must approach Cruz with gloves on for the judgement of a displaced national is always suspect be it Ayn Rand, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, or Gertrude Stein. Being cast adrift warps one’s judgement and creates a tendency to latch upon whatever foothold one can in you ‘new world’. Cruz, like Arnold Swartznegger, found his new justification in the Republican party; embracing the ideology of the emerging Neo-Conservative movement. It can be a potent combination, an emigre from a neighboring country embracing a pseudo-working class conservative movement....
Cruz, however, is going to have to overcome the early impression he has made on the body politic as being abrasive, and divisive, as well as a cartoon character and a clown. At this point in time it is difficult to say if he will prevail, either by winning the party’s nomination outright or by pulling the rest of the pack to the hard-wrong; or whether he will be seen as a two-dimensional clown and laughed off the national stage. Time will tell.
Meanwhile the horn has sounded and the cast of characters hoping to carry the Rescumlican banner into the next election will soon be getting on the campaign bus. Not since the drunken band of merry men last boarded the bus in Scottville (2) to begin their annual ‘world tour’ have we been promised so many clowns performing together. Get on the bus, next stop: Ludington.
"But where are the clowns
send in the clowns.
Don’t bother, they’re here."
____________
(1) http://www.metrolyrics.com/send-in-the-clowns-lyrics-judy-collins.html
(2) I’m here referring to the ‘Scottville Clown Band", a legendary group of inebriated men who march down main streets playing their instruments while dressed in drag. Several of my great uncles were founding members.
No comments:
Post a Comment