Cheap at any price, but $10 is a bargain.
I really enjoyed the Yik-Yak reviews of Cruz's speech: http://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8277489/ted-cruz-yik-yak (the kissing stuff is explained here: http://fusion.net/story/108086/yik-yak-liberty-university-and-the-end-of-cultural-monoliths/ -- PDAs get you demerits).
PDAs get you demerits
How do you even get a PalmPilot these days?
I've heard some great firsthand stories about Ted Cruz's younger days. At least he maintained a consistent persona -- it's basically "unbelievable, horrible person, smarmy dick grows up to be unbelievable, horrible person, smarmy dick."
on 9/11, I didn't like how rock music responded
What was rock music's response to 9/11? I must not have been paying attention.
Maybe Springsteen? At least at the first primary debate Chris Christie is now more likely to punch Cruz in the nuts.
Rock music consoled itself with a few groupies and some cocaine.
And country music collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me and I have to say, it--just as a gut level, I had an emotional reaction that says, "These are my people."
I have to assume that he is pointedly excluding bands like the Dixie Chicks from this.
5: Being a smarmy dick is working for him so well, so I can't blame him. I think he's smart enough to be self-aware but also smart enough to not let on to that.
From link -- this wasn't anything special - not an indication that Liberty U. is endorsing Cruz over other Republican candidates.
The university, founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell, requires its 13,500 residential students to attend as many as three events each week as part of a program called Convocation. There are sermons by guest pastors, performances from Christian entertainers and talks by leaders in many fields.
I'm glad my mom convinced me not to go there.
Classic rock responded to 9/11 by continuing to moulder.
Convocation?
Like others here, Asilon, definitely, but others, too? I'm a member of Oxford's Convocation.
The room is nice:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=oxford+convocation+house&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X
At The Atlantic they gave Ted Cruz the benefit of the doubt --
12: Wait. You were thinking of going there? Aren't you ethnically pre-Christian?
What is with the trope of a large fraction of all things written about Ted Cruz talking about how obviously intelligent he is, or quoting people saying they knew him in college and he was really smart? It's very weird to see so many articles of the form "Ted Cruz said this stupid thing, but he's actually really smart."
If it makes you feel better, I have no evidence that he's smart.
6/8: Rock vs country - compare Springsteen's The Rising, released June 2002 to Toby Keith's Angry American, released May 2002.
The smartness of Ted Cruz is just a theory, not a fact.
They just mean "very competent at aggressively arguing and jumping through academic hoops through hard work," not smart like you guys are smart. "Consistent super ambitious smarmy asshole"
Thanks for the subtle insinuation that we aren't very hard working or aggressive.
I was going to dispute it but realized I wouldn't be on very solid ground.
16: No, I was just being silly. You wouldn't understand that.
Kids picking colleges are often stupid, so I couldn't be sure.
Ever since 9/11, I'm outraged by Chappaquiddick Foghat.
Josh Marshall went to Princeton with Ted Cruz, and apparently knew him but doesn't remember him. He makes a curiously big deal about how great his memory is and how odd it is that he doesn't remember Cruz. I was hoping for some big reveal that they were best buddies at one time, and Josh had somehow managed to block it out.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/me-ted
18 - Smart/stupid is not an either/or.
You have to be really smart to be as stupid as Ted Cruz.
18: It's very weird to see so many articles of the form "Ted Cruz said this stupid thing, but he's actually really smart."
See also Larry Summers, Michael Gove, Axel Weidmann, Donald Rumsfeld, Carly Fiorina...it's a specific elite folkway. Very, very bad sign. It's basically the combination of high intelligence and low rationality in the Stanovic/West framework:
What is with the trope of a large fraction of all things written about Ted Cruz talking about how obviously intelligent he is, or quoting people saying they knew him in college and he was really smart? It's very weird to see so many articles of the form "Ted Cruz said this stupid thing, but he's actually really smart."
The point is that he is the most gigantic fraud in American politics, with a contempt for his fellow humans unmatched even among other American politicians. One of the elite achievers at the most elite of establishment East Coast institutions, and the most pompous elitist at Harvard Law School by many accounts, creates a persona as humble god-fearing salt of the earth. Man who has had the same beliefs since childhood presents his life story as a series of epiphanies and deep reflection that led him to the deep truth of Republican infallibility.
"Ted Cruz said this stupid thing, but he's actually really smart."
Why is this surprising? He's pandering to a wing of the Republican Party that is populated mostly by broketooth morons and raving lunatics.
Speaking of Ted Cruz and music, surely someone has done a mash-up of him telling that little girl "Your world is on fire" and that Kings of Leon song.
I found Jeet Heer's take persuasive and saddening.
What is with the trope of a large fraction of all things written about Ted Cruz talking about how obviously intelligent he is, or quoting people saying they knew him in college and he was really smart? It's very weird to see so many articles of the form "Ted Cruz said this stupid thing, but he's actually really smart."
Isn't this necessary for accurate reporting? If you merely report all the stupid things Ted Cruz says and does, you could inadvertently give readers the impression that he's a moronic buffoon. The truth is that he's a calculating, craven, self-servingly ambitious smarmy fraud. Reporting the fact that he's actually a reasonably intelligent guy--we have good objective evidence of this--who is saying the idiotic things he's saying makes his fraudulence more clear to readers.
re: 31
I think a lot of them really are just idiots.
It's possible to fake being smart to quite a high level by dint of exhibiting the right behavioural cues. There used to be a contemporary of mine on the B Ph\ i \l course who, as far as I could tell, was an idiot.* And yet senior academics would tell me regularly how brilliant he was. He did have a certain tweedy abstracted air and a very confident way of speaking, replete with sufficiently abstruse philosophical terms, that I could see someone would mistake that for smart. But I'd have hoped for better, to be honest.
* I mean, I read his papers, and watched him present at multiple seminars. I didn't just form this judgement because he was a posh sloaney twat.
But I don't think we do have any evidence that he's intelligent. Too many of the things he says are not just standard right-wing talking points, but are actually "where did that come from?" batshit crazy. "Calculating, craven, self-servingly ambitious smarmy fraud"--I'll give you all of that. And maybe "really smart" is a journalistic way of trying to say that without really saying it for fear of looking partisan. But it seems like there should be a more accurate way to express it.
I know people who knew him in college and my friend's little sister actually dated him for a while. All reports the same: very smart (in that sharp, snotty, debater-boy way), astonishing asshole.
He's pandering to a wing of the Republican Party that is populated mostly by broketooth morons and raving lunatics.
Daddy, is Ted Cruz a real clown?
He's summarizing Baudrillard's theory of aesthetics.
Underlying all of this "he says these stupid things . . . but he went to Harvard!" amazement is the deeply flawed belief that no truly intelligent person could possibly hold the beliefs espoused by the rightmost wing of the Republican party. This is fairly common mistake among liberals: we believe that intelligence and/or education is the cure for crazy conservative beliefs. Obviously there is something to this, but it is clearly not the whole story. There are whip-smart people with reactionary views, and some liberals are dumb as a bucket of organic hammers.
A parallel phenomenon was all those commentators who told us David Cameron was really nice. Then he started going purple in the face and openly sneering at women.
29: I did, too, and don't remember him at all from then either. Nevertheless, when he first resurfaced on my radar in '08 (headhunter calls when he was briefly in private practice setting up a new Supreme Court practice, before his Senate run and national exposure) my instant gut reaction was oh god what an awful person stay away stay away. That was probably due to subliminal awareness of his then-recent stint as Texas SG but I prefer to think that his awfulness was so notorious on campus (a campus full of awful people, I should add; though I suppose it goes without saying) that it had seeped into my unconscious ~20 years before.
I know people who knew him in college and my friend's little sister actually dated him for a while
Aaaaaahhh! Cooties!!!!!
Cooties are a theory, not a fact. Unless you mean actual VD.
47: Sorry, I m being too silly today, aren't I?
I think the sharp, snotty debater-boy way of being smart is really just having a superficial sense of what to say when, consistent with ttaM's 37.
Agree with 49. There's a kind of stunted high school debate team version of "clever" that seems to impress some people, especially when combined with braying self confidence. I'm not sure it's accurately described by "really smart".
Further 50: Which is not to say that you can't be genuinely smart along some axes and still hold batshit crazy views. Witness the ubiquitous online figure of the creationist engineer.
re: 44
I never really got that, but then again, I'm not the target audience. For someone from my background people like David Cameron are pretty much the type specimen of 'slippery, evil bastard'.
See also, Tony Blair.
Smart people are often batshit crazy in some other dimension, because they're convinced that their expertise in one are makes them brilliant in all areas. They often come up with some idea that people dismiss out of hand because practitioners in the field know it was disproved 50 years ago, which only makes the dilettante feel persecuted as an outsider when no one will agree with their brilliant breakthrough.
54 was endorsing 52, not being pwned by it. Really, I'm a smart commenter, why can't anyone see that!
Well, I think we all know of cases of people that are very smart in one way and very stupid in other ways. The question about Cruz is whether he is actually smart in any way.
The question about Cruz is whether he is actually smart in any way.
Right. I don't really know about Cruz, but what I was trying to get at in 50 is that there is a certain style of aggressiveness in questioning/debate that many people (such as the median beltway journalist) seem to interpret as "Hey, he's really sharp", rather than "Hey, he's really an asshole".
Gah. I can't believe we're having the "is he smart or not" conversation again. Especially since last time it was either irrelevant or actually made things worse.
It doesn't really matter if he's smart (but, for the record, even if you're not super impressed he's almost certainly at least one standard deviation above the mean). He's savvy enough to be dangerous.
54: What my theory supposes is, "What if gravity works differently now, because it got disillusioned after JFK was shot?"
Especially since last time it was either irrelevant or actually made things worse.
Yes, Ted Cruz wasn't so bad before we raised the question of whether or not he's a real smart person.
58: Relax. First time, tragedy. Second time, farce. It's a fact, not a theory.
Cruz is probably as "smart" along a bunch of dimensions, whatever that means, as a lot of very successful lawyers, businessmen, journalists, doctors, consultants, other educated professionals, with the kind of "smartness" that's valued in those professions. Very clear that he's a world-class ahole though, even by the standards of ambitious right wing aholes.
Ted Cruz is not savvy enough to be dangerous, unless you mean to the Republican party. His campaign will be a spectacular failure, and he will be out of the race by January.
I would be happy to substitute "savvy" for "smart", as the latter is oversubscribed. Ted Cruz is savvy.
63 is correct. Ted Cruz's only redeeming feature is that he doesn't have a chance.
63: Possibly, but he and his supporters push whatshisname's window to the crazy right. Someone wake me up when it's finally time to burn shit down.
Ted Cruz's only redeeming feature is that he doesn't have a chance.
Let's just hold the fuck on. Ted Cruz is a member of the United States Senate. That's a pretty fucking high pinnacle. He may never be president, but that doesn't mean he'll never be able to do real harm, or poison national politics, or make an undeservedly rich life for himself and feel personally rewarded for being an irredeemable asshat.
66: I don't know what you look like, but I had this wild image of you and mcmanus (looking like an older version of the guy in the photo that Ripper linked to the other day) standing at the ramparts. It made me smile.
67: I totally agree.
Still, that's all better than if he had a realistic chance to be President.
Cruz lacks the personality to be an effective legislator. I'm sure he'll feel personally rewarded for being an irredeemable asshat no matter what he does.
Seems like Ted Cruz's best redeeming feature is that he scores own goals a lot. Didn't he force the Republicans into some showdown they lost? Isn't he pretty well hated by other Congressional Republicans? Surely we can appreciate that about him.
If we're going to allow soccer analogies, we may as well demand full Communism right now.
68: What I look like: Check your email, the jpg might be filtered to the old curmudgeon folder.
If he drags the field to the right, that helps us in the general. Unless there's some whacko unpredictable thing from left field (eg old Jewish women voting for Pat Buchanan). Then we're fucked.
Larison is entertaining on the subject of Cruz.
Smart people are often batshit crazy in some other dimension, because they're convinced that their expertise in one are makes them brilliant in all areas.
See, for example, Ben Carson. Dude is a fucking brain surgeon. I have to say, since he's become a fixture on Fox News, my opinion of brain surgeons has slipped considerably.
Cruz seems to me to be the kind of "smart" that finds a way to quickly turn any discussion towards his talking points -- a valuable skill in appellate argument, for example -- but at this distance I really don't see any capacity to think beyond his talking points. Seriously, no one in the Admin is actually scared of this guy's antics in the Senate.* That is, what we're seeing isn't someone who just can't be smart everywhere outside of his field, he's not a "brain surgeon" within his field.
* Although he has appeared smart enough to get some senators to play along. Only to have their hopes dashed, because Cruz hasn't thought things through at all. Eg not understanding that a government shutdown wouldn't kill the rollout of the ACA.
The question about Cruz is whether he is actually smart in any way.
Everybody who knows him personally--including the people who hate him--say he is. That plus the credentials is sufficient evidence for me.
His campaign will be a spectacular failure
Only if you believe that his goal is to be president of the United States in 2016. I suspect that isn't his real target, nor that of at least half of the candidates in the field come the first primary.
But what is his goal? I bet he can't get in on the grift, because everyone hates him.
He's already in on the grift, has a base of support in the House Crazy Caucus, and will come out of the election with a good fundraising database.
Seriously, there's a sizable chunk of the GOP base that is positively inspired by assholism (see the evergreen appeal of Ted Nugent) and wrench-throwing. Being the biggest asshole in the Rotunda is a merit badge.
73: I think you'd make a great revolutionary.
I don't think he will. If literally almost everyone whose ever met you thinks you are an asshole, then they're not going to open their checkbooks. There's other movement conservatives with minimal personal skills.
The legal/medical/banking industries to 83.
Cruz hasn't thought things through at all
I really doubt this. Ted Cruz isn't Sarah Palin, despite sharing some batshit signifiers. If shutting down the government was never going to stop the ACA (and practically no commentator believed it would), perhaps his goal wasn't really about policy in the first place. GOP presidential politics is about 3/4 racket at this point (see Trump, Cain, Gingrich, Palin, Carson, etc.), and it's a pretty lucrative one. His wife just stepped down from a plum position at Gold Mansacks to campaign full time. Follow the money here.
83 reads as if it were a description of someone whose career has been a spectacular self-inflicted failure. I want to emphasize again that Cruz is currently a member of the senate. How do you think he got there?
This picture made Ted Cruz clear to me. Oh, that guy. As a former asshole debater myself, he was instantly recognizable.
Nowadays he's a great example of a particular Harvard type, where you think at some point this person is going to drop the affect and speak to you human being to human being, but it turns out to be affect and bullshit all the way down.
Ted Cruz isn't Sarah Palin, despite sharing some batshit signifiers.
Despite being a laughingstock, I'm under the impression that Sarah Palin was able to capitalize fairly successfully on her few minutes in the spotlight.
80 -> 83.
There really is a substantial chunk of Republican voters whose entire political views seem to amount to "if it makes liberals angry/unhappy/etc. then I'm for it." (At least among the base I think it's a strong majority.) The fact that Cruz is a giant asshole makes him more appealing to him, rather than less. The fact that he's ineffective as a politician, leaves the party worse off, and so on probably doesn't matter much more than the fact that Republican policies are ineffective at doing what they claim to do, leave the country (and those voters) worse off, and so on.
I suspect Cruz is going to flame out eventually, because he comes off as a dimmer/more annoying Rick Santorum. But he'll probably follow a similar trajectory: popular for a while but then eaten alive by the money candidate while the true believers wander over to whoever else is getting a lot of attention by saying awful things about people they hate.
88: Right! And Ted Cruz is way more skilled than she ever dreamed of being.
But not nearly as hot. Don't let your cynicism peter out too soon, bro.
That's really a very subjective judgement.
I didn't even realize his wife works for Goldman Sachs! Wow! He could be the phoniest populist since Otto von Bismarck.
he comes off as a dimmer/more annoying Rick Santorum
Best I can tell, Santorum is a true believer and Cruz is a troll. His natural constituency.
89: So the 2016 race is going to be the same as the 2012 race, with all the anyone-but-Mitts (with the money candidate this time being Jeb or Christie or...) getting their time in the sun?
For a while I was under the impression that Cruz was angling for the VP slot as the nutter needed to shore up the right flank of whoever the party establishment eventually picks as being electable. Now I think he believes what he says and intends to fight for his beliefs with all the passion and vigor he can muster. Fortunately I think his appeal is limited, but I think he'll be around for a long time.
practically no commentator believed it would
This is true, but commentators only looked at the policy after Cruz had talked some people into backing it, and then announcing it. At first, the idea was treated plausibly, because Cruz is "smart." Then people started thinking about how this would actually work, legislatively, and it was clear that it was just a giant pandercon.
I'll grant you that he's playing for money here, not for the White House.
98 -- I think it ends up being JEB, but the money is going to be backing everyone. Well, Walker in addition to Bush.
I'd be surprised if it wasn't a least a fair bit like 2012. I don't think that most of the money-Republicans (at least the sane ones) are any more excited about giving the crazies a shot, but they can't do much about it in the short term.
The things that seem different to me are that, (1) there isn't a single obvious establishment candidate*, and (2) apparently they shortened the primary season after 2012's endless embarrassment, which could have the downside of not giving the money candidate enough time to spend out all the crazies.
*Bush? That name is absolutely not going to help him, even running against Clinton. ("So when was your life better, 1990s or 2000s?")
Christie is already dead in the water as far as I can tell (he could fight for a comeback, but at this point I'm not convinced).
Walker? Scary guy and owned by rich people, but not at all ready for prime time and I'm pretty sure they know it (the base might not).
Anyone else I can think of doesn't have enough recognition to predict them at this point, or has what are probably irremediable problems (like, not white).
I can't even take comfort in threats to move to Canada as that's where Cruz is from.
I can't help but enjoy that the details of Cruz's parentage are basically the same as the details of Obama's parentage if you believe every lie a Birther has put out. Plus, his father actual carried arms in support of Communism.
Bush? That name is absolutely not going to help him
The name won't help him, no, but the massive pre-existing network of political support that comes with it will. That's what being the establishment is.
his father actual carried arms in support of Communism.
IOKIYAAR.
90: He's really not. His very first week running for President was a total disaster, as bad as Palin's first week. The news has entirely been about how everyone thinks he's a smart asshole, and that he went to Harvard. Plus he's a secretly a Cuban from Canada. (The winning strategy for Republican Presidential candidates is likable all-American dum-dum.) The only way in which the week hasn't been as disastrous as Palin's first week is that nobody is paying attention, and Palin was thrust into the spotlight at one of the few moments everyone pays attention.
The Bush name doesn't hurt Jeb anymore, I don't think. Enough time has passed and enough ficticious memories have been planted.
99 - I remember someone whose writing about politics I took seriously positing that Ted Cruz didn't actually expect to beat David Dewhurst, that his campaign was really meant to be red meat for the base that would give him publicity to let him out-crazy Abbott when he ran for governor. His schtick would probably play better as a showboaty executive who didn't have to work with anyone or accomplish anything.
105 - On the other hand his aggressive immigration position is really, really going to hurt him among the base, and he doesn't seem particularly inclined to downplay or soften it in order to get right wing support. (I don't know why, honestly, but he really does seem to believe strongly that we need some sort of genuine amnesty-if-a-democrat-said-it immigration reform. Good for him, I mean, but way outside of the Mitt Romney style "These are my principles and if you don't like them I have others" approach.)
And whoever ends up the establishment candidate gets that support - he's certainly got an edge on it but those people still know at least something about what side of the bread has the butter on it.
Plus, his father actual carried arms in support of Communism.
For real?
103: Moving to Canada just does not sound like a lot of fun to me. A ton of people like Vancouver, but those generally seem to be people who really like Seattle and Portland. Those are objectively nice places. One of my great-grandmothers was from Portland, but they're a lot more casual than I am and everything is newer.
I just like the East (or Europe). Toronto can be great, but it's even more expensive than Boston, and there's a lot of sprawl that I don't like. Tim's not a great French speaker, so Montreal might be tough, and all the jobs in his field left Montreal.
And, I really want to live somewhere that's not more than a few hours from the sea. All of the provinces on the east coast of Canada are the ones that are struggling.
Plus, Stephen fucking Harper.
I just googled Harper's name to make sure that I knew how to spell it, and the first hit was a newsheadline: "Stephen Harper says ISIS unlikely to sue over legality of Syria mission."
Give me a break.
There really is a substantial chunk of Republican voters whose entire political views seem to amount to "if it makes liberals angry/unhappy/etc. then I'm for it."
This dynamic makes me just so incredibly sad. "Yippee! Let's dismantle good things and trample on the scraps for fun! It immiserates everyone? So much the better! HA HA HA HA HA LOVE ME!"
In recent history no one has won the Republican nomination on their first try except for W. -- who had the same name as the most recent Republican president. Since none of the candidates from 2012 look like serious possibilities, I think that means it's got to be Jeb.
And, I really want to live somewhere that's not more than a few hours from the sea.
There may be a solution for you.
108
The Bush name doesn't hurt Jeb anymore, I don't think. Enough time has passed and enough ficticious memories have been planted.
It doesn't hurt as much as it would have in 2012, sure, and will hurt less when 2016 gets here. Time passes. But it's still probably a net negative.
Three caveats:
(1) It's a net negative in the general election but not necessarily the primary, because who the hell knows.
(2) I'm viewing the name separately from being the money candidate. After all, Romney's name (while technically a dynasty) was not nearly as important as his money. Same for a lot of other candidates.
(3) Predicting the future is hard. The economy could tank or there could be another major terrorist attack between now and November 2016, who knows. I'm just saying that time alone won't be enough to cleanse the Bush name.
115 is awesome. I love the guy from Saskatchewan who wants the Turks & Caicos to become part of Canada by first becoming part of Saskatchewan
Maybe we should preemptively invade the Turks & Caicos to save it from domination by the Maple Leaf.
I am volunteering to serve as military governor of this new territory if we invade.
I'm willing to be Governor General of Canada as long as I don't have to live in Ottawa.
I read somewhere that 70% of the population of the Dominican Republic wants to emigrate the US. At that point, shouldn't we just annex it?
"It's a good idea. Just one problem," he says. "Canadians are too strict."
101: I didn't realize that J.E.B. is an initialism. It's unfortunate that he's the most competent brother, because now I'm going to associate him with G.O.B.
"Most competent brother" doesn't necessarily mean he's more competent than G.O.B.. I mean, consider the other brothers...
That is true. But relatively, W. is clearly the G.O.B. He's flashier. The other one--Neil?--is both least successful and the wackiest (Reverend Moon? Really?), so he fits the Buster role. Ah, there's a fourth one, but I don't know much about him.
I am volunteering to serve as military governor of this new territory if we invade.
The Turks and Caicos have basically the same status as the Falkland Islands, so, as military governor, you might have a bit of a fight on your hands with regard to the Brits.
125: All I've got from memory is Marvin? Maybe Melvin? And possibly got indicted for something sometime. I wonder how close I am.
126: But Canada is already under the queen. No real difference.
Ah, there's a fourth one, but I don't know much about him.
He lives out of an old Volkswagen Bus near the Oregon coast, and prefers to be known under the surname "Walker."
He was the number 1 college debater in the US of 1992. I don't know why people don't think he is smart.
125: Neil is both the S&L one, the "Why do these prostitutes keep showing up at my hotel room?" one, and the model-daughter-now-named-Lauren-Lauren one right?
He would have been almost 40 by then. What was he doing in college?
Because college debate is a stupid way to spend your time? Is this a trick question?
Oh, right. I was conflating Neil's legal issues with Marvin, who might possibly have never done a wrong thing in his life.
Neil is both the S&L one, the "Why do these prostitutes keep showing up at my hotel room?" one, and the model-daughter-now-named-Lauren-Lauren one right?
Wow, that really is quite a trifecta!
Marvin, who might possibly have never done a wrong thing in his life.
There was that time he got caught trespassing in a cow pasture with a half-bucket of magic mushrooms.
That's the kind of thing we all have to agree not to hold over one another's head.
132: It seems like half of the idiot libertarians who infest comment sections all over the interwebs sooner or later refer fondly to their college or high school debate team years. I'm not convinced it's a mark of intelligence.
Ol' Ted obviously never had to face off against this guy.
Speaking of islands ripe for a takeover, is this the best Lonely Planet country guide ever or what? Note the three tourist attractions listed for Nauru.
I hope there's a sister nation somewhere populated with tiny, potato-shaped people.
Come see our historic, post-industrial wasteland.
132 - I mean, this bears zero relationship to his intelligence or fitness for office, but he gave a fiery speech denouncing climate scientists as being like the Inquisition officials who persecuted Galileo for claiming the earth was round. That's some "fucking magnets" understanding of history there; eventually if you say enough stupid things that don't bear up to 30 seconds of scrutiny even if you're in political agreement with them and even if you're a credulous Beltway reporter, you get a reputation for being dumb. (See also Sesssions' magnificent Obamacare arithmetic.) The other thing going on is that a significant chunk of both his colleagues and his erstwhile political allies hate him, so they're willing to dish to the same credulous Beltway reporters, which shapes the news coverage.
What, the Linkbelt Oval isn't a tourist attraction?!?
Home of the national Australian Rules Football team, who consistently finish between 5th and 7th at the international Australian Rules Football championships.
Plus, his father actual carried arms in support of Communism.
My mother, whose great uncle and some other relatives were in anti-Batista (though non-communist) resistance/terrorist cells, is pretty sure his father is confabulating a lot of this background. The chronology doesn't really add up.
In any case, I really hope a decent investigative journalist follows up. For example, Ted Cruz has said that, "[his father] was a guerilla, throwing Molotov cocktails and blowing up buildings. . ." First question: where/when did he throw Molotov cocktails? Very early on in the resistance they stopped going after military/strategic targets, because they were too well protected, and started bombing quinceañeras, social clubs, hotels, and the like.
144: I had a brief Nauru obsession. The bat-shit (literal bat shit) riches and crazy (surely made up and kind of racist) stories about Nauruans driving cars til they ran out of gas and then abandoning them for new ones. (Whatever I read claimed there were abandoned Mercs everyone -- unlikely.) Also, was it Nauru that lost all its money by financing a Broadway bomb??
My mother, whose great uncle and some other relatives were in anti-Batista (though non-communist) resistance/terrorist cells
Reading from the bottom and not really paying attention this thread I 100% honestly misread this as "Barista".
What's really impressive to me isn't that his colleagues hate him, it's that they hate him so much that they're out there talking openly about how much they (and everyone they know) hate him to the media.
I mean, anonymously sourced gossip is one thing but when you have other senators, in his own party, when it's the party that doesn't constantly do this, obviously seeking out the press to go on the record about how much they hate him that's impressive.
151: they were pretty serious about their espresso having the right espumita, it's true.
Also, was it Nauru that lost all its money by financing a Broadway bomb??
Aren't you thinking of the Red Sox?
The Turks and Caicos sound lovely. What jobs are there outside of tourism? I knew I should have been an equity analyst. You can do that remotely.
I mean, this bears zero relationship to his intelligence or fitness for office, but he gave a fiery speech denouncing climate scientists as being like the Inquisition officials who persecuted Galileo for claiming the earth was round.
Was the part about this bearing zero relationship to his intelligence or fitness for office supposed to be a joke?
What jobs are there outside of tourism?
You could be a development worker in support of TCI's disadvantaged Haitian migrant guest-worker community. Or maybe you could be a disadvantaged migrant guest-worker yourself.
According to this awesome article, financing a London musical about the "life of Leonardo DaVinci" was only one of a number of ways in which Nauru lost all of its money. Claims that the most popular pastime is slowly driving the 20 minute loop around the island, drinking beer, and then throwing the beer cans into the impassable, coral-pinnacle filled wasteland that once was the Phosphate mine.
These days, apparently the main business on Nauru is operating a nightmarish rape-and-suicide filled refugee camp where Australia apparently ships asylum seekers.
They also have a 75% obesity rate and a 90% unemployment rate.
then throwing the beer cans into the impassable, coral-pinnacle filled wasteland that once was the Phosphate mine.
So they have an open air aluminum mine in place?
Actually, probably still steel cans, alas.
This is a pretty good Nauru photo gallery.
Was the part about this bearing zero relationship to his intelligence or fitness for office supposed to be a joke?
Thinking climate change is like the Inquisition is relevant to your fitness for office. Thinking that Urban VIII was fighting a desperate battle against round-earth forces over a hundred years after Magellan's death is the part that's just for pointing and laughing.
You don't doubt that President Reagan M. Bush III will be fighting against climate change scientists from the Waterworld-like ruins of DC in 2125, do you?
Cruz reminds me of the kid in Edwina the Dinosaur but without the redemption at the end. Edward von Cruzie-Doobie.
138: Wow, that really is quite a trifecta!
He is also the "John Hinckley's brother was scheduled to come to our house to have dinner the night of the Reagan assassination attempt" one.
Ted Cruz's logo: Discover the network!
That guy always brought the best pigs in a blanket. Everyone had him over to dinner.
I can't find a searchable Tom Tomorrow archive, but there's a This Modern World that portrays Neil Bush as kind of a Sloth-from-Goonies figure, the mutant they keep locked away from public scrutiny*.
*of course in trying to find it I found a blog piece pointing out that Sloth is basically a horribly abused special needs kid. Not TMW's point.
The 80s had children, but not in a way we can understand.
Nowadays he's a great example of a particular Harvard type, where you think at some point this person is going to drop the affect and speak to you human being to human being, but it turns out to be affect and bullshit all the way down.
[Gaze flicks sidelong, erratic, nervous.]
171: I count myself lucky that I never met any of these alleged Harvard types. Whew.
I love an astrophysicist's description of Cambridge as "Hogwarts with no magic and everyone in Slytherin."
I am quite sure I haven't told this story here before: when I was applying to that school near Boston that Ted Cruz attended for law school which is in Cambridge and is called Harvard, I had cause to talk to the admissions department about whether I could use some application materials -- reference letters -- that had been uploaded to a general-purpose reference letter site. It took me a while to get in touch with a relevant factotum at the admissions office, but when I did, this was the conversation:
me: "oh, hello, I was calling to ask if I could use reference letters submitted to [ place ] in my application."
factotum: "well, you know, it's Harvard. It's very competitive. I think you should just do what they say."
me: "yes, ah, I do indeed realize that it's Harvard, and of course I intend to fill out the application as required, I just am not sure if submitting letters using [ place ] fulfills the requirements."
factotum: "well, you know, it's Harvard. [ this is really kind of a stretched-out drawl. It's haaarvard ] It's verrrry competitive. You're going to want to do what they tell you to do."
me: "yes, yup, yeah, I do realize that it's Harvard. In point of fact I already work at Harvard, and am pretty confident I will get the position for which I'm applying. All I want to know, really, is whether the letters that I already have in [ place ] will, if submitted, fulfill at a technical level what I need to include with my application."
factotum: "it's Harvard. It's verrrry competitive."
And so on. In the end I asked all my letter writers to resubmit their letters because sure, fine, whatever. Delightfully, the rest of my experience has been nothing like that.
So, you did get in? I've heard it's very competitive.
I am sure I have told this story here before, but my BFF when 5 or 6 became obsessed with John Adams (damn yankees). Adams went to Harvard so my friend called admissions there to ask how he too could go to Harvard when old enough. Their answer? "Go to Andover." And he did! But not Harvard.
175: I did, as I was certain I would (the decision to accept me, competitiveness of the institution at large notwithstanding, was completely at the discretion of my boss, who had encouraged me to apply).
Somewhat relevant to the Harvard discussion (though not as good as the headline would promise): Ivy League Admissions Are A Sham.
But the vast majority of elite school applicants are a long way from becoming a whole, self-actualized person. It's not their fault; only they've never faced real threats to their existence, had people depending on them for food and shelter, or lived in actual poverty for any amount of time.
Yet for the last few years, it's felt like the normal, inquisitive, relatively unfiltered teenager of the early 2000's has been replaced by dozens of little Russell Wilsons. Gone are the hard edges and the unintentional flashes of personality that made it seem like I was actually getting something accomplished in the course of (most) of these interviews. Nowadays, I've gotten layers of carefully constructed defenses, designed to reveal only the most admission-friendly parts of the student.
Cruz went to Princeton and Harvard Law -- pundits (who may never have met him) tell us he's smart. Sonia Sotomayor went to Princeton (summa) and Yale Law School (a law review editor) -- pundits (who never met her) tell us she's not so smart. I can't imagine what could account for the different treatment.
I feel like the excerpted bit in 178 is basically someone complaining that they didn't see any more people who could be molded into proper Harvard students, just people who had already been molded into proper Harvard students.
But I don't think we do have any evidence that he's intelligent.
I watched him bully an immigration law professor at length during a hearing the other day. (It was livestreamed; I wasn't there in person.)
It wasn't particularly perceptive or creative bullying, but there was definitely a basic intelligence and competence on display. Immigration law is complicated stuff, and he has clearly memorized at least a few elements of it. I would be surprised if his understanding is very deep, but it's definitely not nothing.
his aggressive immigration position is really, really going to hurt him among the base, and he doesn't seem particularly inclined to downplay or soften it in order to get right wing support
I dunno, at least during the portion of the hearing I was watching, he was energetically trying to destroy the Deferred Action programs that Obama announced last December. Granted it was on procedural grounds, but I don't think Republican primary voters care why you hate immigrants as long as you do so loudly and often.
179 is reminding me that I have a mild bias that how people answer questions on the fly can tell you something (not everything) about their intelligence and humanity. Justice Sotomayor, the one time I saw her in person, was amazing.
This seems like a very good description of what people mean why they say Cruz is smart.
I'm told by smart lawyers that he has a sharp legal mind, can think on his feet and has remarkable recall for facts, cases and even page numbers of the briefs.
Ha, that's by Jennifer Rubin, as becomes obvious if you keep reading (don't).
November, not December. Not a good night for typos.
Sonia Sotomayor went to Princeton (summa) and Yale Law School (a law review editor) -- pundits (who never met her) tell us she's not so smart.
It just shows the circles I travel in that I have never before encountered this calumny!
174: That's Paddy from the City Desk at O'Connell Plumbing Supply -- their telephone is one digit off from Harvard's, and he likes to wind up folx who get the wrong number.
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181 - Yeah, but you have to consistently do it and not talk about paths to citizenship and reaching out to the latino community. If the Republican base was actually concerned about immigration in a serious way he'd probably be fine with them (heck, he'd do way better in the general election with those views). But what they want is someone who hates minorities, openly and ferociously. And Bush is refusing to do that.
My best guess is that it's good old fashioned doesn't-exist-for-Republicans-unless-it-happens-to-them stuff, but that doesn't mean he isn't sincere about it (just an awful person generally).
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Oh, I totally misread you, MHPH. I thought you were talking about Cruz. Bush is generally quite reasonable on immigration -- his "act of love" comment last year was frankly more blunt than anything Obama has said.
So is there a sense/consensus/obvious example of how the influence pie is split up? I.e. how much of any US immigration policy is really driven by ideologues, versus merely being the superstructural manifestation of the underlying business base to all these decisions? It seems to me that most of the ruling class would be quite comfortable with a situation that was 10X as violent and immiserating as the current horrible immigration regime, as long as all the victims were people of color and a few poor whites and cops.
I'm with 186... who has ever alleged that Sotomayor is not so smart?
Um what? There were all kinds of rightwingers who said she was just an affirmative action pick and that she would be totally unqualified if she weren't a minority woman.
195: The entire media right after she was nominated.
And Eventheliberal New Republic
The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was "not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench," as one former Second Circuit clerk for another judge put it. "She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue." (During one argument, an elderly judicial colleague is said to have leaned over and said, "Will you please stop talking and let them talk?") Second Circuit judge Jose Cabranes, who would later become her colleague, put this point more charitably in a 1995 interview with The New York Times: "She is not intimidated or overwhelmed by the eminence or power or prestige of any party, or indeed of the media."
as one former Second Circuit clerk for another judge put it. "She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue."
Oh my god. Flames on the side of my face.
So basically Rosen was claiming that Sotomayor was Scalia? What a fucking asshat.
Well, the good news is that she has proven all her doubters about as wrong as they could possibly have been.
I swear we actually talked about it here.
203: http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2009_05_24.html#009814
You're all going to feel so betrayed when it is revealed that Sotomayor's sideline business, leasing barges in Texas, is responsible for introducing the zebra mussel into both Lake Austin and Lake Waco.
I'm pleased that in the discussion in 203, I worked the phrase "lemon party" into my summary of David Sirota's fever-dream heighten-the-contradictions political stance.
Found the nearest dead thread to post this comment which may be great historical importance to unfogged -- a witness has come forward verifying the "Who wants to sex Mutombo" story (I haven't actually watched this)
http://deadspin.com/rejoice-alonzo-mourning-says-who-wants-to-sex-mutombo-1693926337
Someone needs to elevate 207 to the front page.
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Overheard on a DC metro train passing near Arlington Cemetery: a young boy, about three, says to his Dad "they won't build a memorial for Obama, right?"
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209: I was just saying that tourist season is gearing up.
