The recent Jack Kerwick column dismissing Cruzs challenge to the DC establishment is fascinating for its incoherence.
I dont know Jack Kerwick and I know precious little of him. His Townhall byline volunteers that he teaches Philsophy and Political Science in some combination of campuses throughout the New Jersey area. In the Ivory Tower biz that translates to his being an adjunct professor terminally stuck on the professional ladders lower rungs. In that regard he and I have a lot in common. You dont get a tenure-track gig in our disciplines by championing conservative causes.
I have usually found Dr. Kerwicks column to be worth reading but I was tempted to pass over yesterdays post
An anti-Establishment Candidate?: The Real Ted Cruz" (punctuation as in original: my grammar hound is muzzled for this exercise). Then I thought to myself No thats exactly what I accuse Trump supporters of doing to opponents of their guy. I need to read this." And I did.
The heart of Kerwicks charge that Cruz is a pro-establishment wolf in sheeps clothing resides in the immigration issue. I cite at length:
It is doubtless because Cruz wanted as badly as anyone to bring illegals out of the shadows" that accounts sic for why in spite of his self-styling to the contrary he left it to Jeff Sessions (who not incidentally has endorsed Trump) to lead the fight against the Gang of Eight.
In the early 2000s Cruz joined the board of HAPI an organization comprised of conservative" Hispanics interested in advancing a pro-immigration" agenda. HAPI worked closely with the Bush administration. Every proposal included legalization. In fact among the policies that Cruz and his colleagues at HAPI supported was John McCains and Ted Kennedys immigration reform" act of 2006!
Robert De Posada a former Director of Hispanic Affairs for the RNC and a founder of the Latino Coalition" meets Cruzs current protestations that he never supported legalization in principle but only as a strategy to derail the Gang of Eights plans with incredulity. Its just a flat out lie. Period. Theres just no truth behind it."
Cruz witnessed Trumps meteoric rise over his stance on this issue and recalibrated accordingly.
Okay. In the first place allow me to stick my head far enough out of the trench to say that illegal immigration used to be a somewhat nuanced issue before the Obama Administration staged an all-out assault on our borders and has lately even threatened to import thousands of ill-screened Muslims from ISIS country into our midst. I confess that Ive always felt sympathy for a college student I recall who was smuggled over the Bravo at the ripe age of three and has since grown up in a purely American setting. Unless this girl has been throwing bombs or distributing crack I dont see why she (as opposed to her parents) shouldnt receive special consideration. Newt Gingrich strayed fartherand fatally for his campaigninto No Mans Land during the 2008 election cycle when he described a mythical grandfather who had resided here illegally but peacefully and gainfully for twenty-five years.
Abuelito is still a lawbreaker (and quite likely an identity thief at some stage); little Megan with her American name and American tastes and accent is not. We could still talk about things like that in the early 2000s… barely. Care to guess where Donald Trump was on such issues at that time? Dr. Kerwick remains mum.
Jeff Sessions by the way seemed fully satisfied with Cruzs stance as of late December in 2015. Speaking in Daphne Alabama he declared It the Gang of Eight bill was that close to being passed... and I think I can say this with integrity. Without the vigorous opposition of Ted Cruz this bill likely would have passed." Was Senator Sessions then lying about finding Cruzs position sincere Dr. Kerwick?
And the Gang of Eight bill is indeed my second point. The mysterious Mr. De Posada often quoted by Kerwick (as in a
previous post that presumes to explain Sessions Trump endorsement) must be a credentialed and experienced mind-readerand Cruz himself must be a downright foolif the Senators strategy in that instance was not in fact to derail the bill while exposing the true motives of its architects. For Cruz essentially blew up the bill. The Democrats wouldnt pass it with the proviso that no legalized immigrant would ever receive the right to vote. If Cruz were pro-amnesty why not simply support the bill as it stood?
(Possibly the De Posada its a flat-out lie" remark above was meant to cover political activity well before the 2013 bill. Ive reread the murky passage several times and cant reach a decision.)
In the third place… why is Cruzs smoking out of the Gangs duplicity a pro-amnesty act but Trumps touchback amnesty"enunciated scarcely half a year agois a genuinely tough secure-the-border position?
Kerwick continues:
As The National Interest notes Cruzs speeches on foreign policy are replete with exactly the kind of abstract idealistic generalitieshuman rights" fundamental values" the hope that every person may have to live in freedom" etc.that conservatives have been fighting for centuries."
Nor is this just rhetoric for Cruz would refuse to communicate at all with Iran until it unequivocally affirms Israels right to exist as a Jewish state"a standard of which even our Arab allies expressed rejection." And he argued for drawing Ukraine into an equal alliance with the Western powers of NATOeven though a country as poor and corrupt as Ukraine couldnt possibly carry its share of the burdens and responsibilities that member states are expected to assume.
Hmm. So Cruz is a turncoat to the movement because he speaks in abstract idealistic generalities" (as opposed I guess to shouting loser" and liar")? The supposed quotation becomes incoherent after the dash as you will have noticed. Surely Cruz wasnt arguing that conservatives have fought human rights for centuries although Kerwicks butchered citation presents him as saying precisely this; for if he were then who would accuse him of being idealistic? The ensuing stances emphasized by Kerwick also reflect a strong belief in the universal dignity of man as a being of free will created to pursue a high calling (viz. fundamental values")… so what Dr. Kerwick are you trying to say? That Cruz advocates bourbonism? Or that Cruz is a bleeding-heart idealist who upholds the Declaration of Independence? Or is it just that you dont proofread your stuff?
And theres more:
Cruz decries New York values" which he identifies with support for abortion gay marriage" and focus on money and the media." All the while some of his biggest backers are Wall Street financiers. The chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs which spotted Cruz and his wife a considerable loan had won an award from the Human Rights Campaign" for his tireless work in advancing marriage equality."
Goldman Sachs in the words of one left-leaning publication had been a driving force on influential Wall Street for LGBT equality."
Evidently Cruzs conscience was no more conflicted over accepting resources from this embodiment of New York values than it was conflicted over accepting resources from two billionaire gay hoteliersand proponents of marijuana legalizationwho held a reception for him last spring. During the event Cruz not once expressed his opposition to gay marriage." Moreover he borrowed a move from the old tried and true GOP playbook and bucked the issue altogether by invoking states rights:" marriage he said is a thing best left to the states to resolve on their own terms.
As for abortion even as Cruz blasts Donald Trump for the latters assertion that Planned Parenthood does some good we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that Cruz who has been in the US senate for six years only began calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood after it came to light that the countrys largest abortion provider traded in baby parts.
In other words Cruz said nothing all of this time as the taxpayer was forced to subsidize PPs abortion services. Yet whats worse the trading of the bodily members of deceased human beings or the killing of those humans?
Again lets come up for air. I dont honestly know what to say about the infamous Goldman Sachs connections that always burst forth like firecrackers when Trumpsters inveigh against Cruz. I know that Google contributes to leftwing causes but I still Google topics like Kerwicks obscure allegations. I know that Armand Hammer was a virtual Bolshevik but we still buy baking soda. Did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance was composed by a defrocked Baptist minister-cum-socialist with the intent of infusing statist notions into the malleable minds of children? How many times have you repeated those words you Commie!
Yes Heidi once worked for the Wall Street firm in question and the Cruzes took out a loan to buy their house… not sure Im at my boiling point yet. Of course if you could present me Dr. Kerwick with a candidate who was completely clean of sleezy deals with Wall Street bankers and speculators whose business practices had always been scrupulously above-board whose investors were always happy with how their savings had been preserved and their interests considered… but I dont think youve found that guy.
Frankly I say without shame that my own position on gay marriage is to get the state out of it and let individual denominations determine whether they wish to extend their sacramental blessing to the sacrifices involved in rearing a family or instead to great sex. And in any casethis is just a rhetorical matter Dr. Kerwick but youre the one whos torturing wordsthe establishment view on marriage really ought to be even now that its heterosexual; so if Cruz had endorsed gay marriage as vigorously as say Donald Trump has been known to do then he would actually be anti-establishment in that instance.
But youre right: the conservative position is that gay money should not be accepted and gay people publicly humiliated whenever the occasion presents itself because conservatives have been fighting for centuries against the fundamental right of individuals to go astray and learn their lessons for themselves. If Cruz were a true conservative he should be advocating… I dont know: maybe exiling all gays from our shores or telling his crowds to beat them up and chase them off.
Similarly Cruz should have been demanding that federal funds be cut off to Planned Parenthood from the day of his swearing in. He had nothing better to dofor what could be more holy work than saving little babies? Why wait for a scandal to raise the issue to national consciousness and place it on the Senates agenda? Of course killing babies probably isnt really that big a deal after all or Donald Trump wouldnt be downgrading its importance relative to all the good work that PP does… but the point is that it
should be a big deal if youre anti-establishment like Trump. Er… no the point is that Cruz is not a true conservative because he didnt go down in flames railing against abortion from Day One before every camera pointed his way like the late great Alan Keyes. I think Im getting warm now.
I will say this much for Professor Jack Kerwick. He is the one Trump advocate that I have found attempting something like a reasoned multi-faceted argument for his man. What he emerges with however is an indictment of the human conditions political realities. None of us can be 100 percent faithful to every cause all of the time and none of us always judges correctly the motives of his collaborators or the full consequences of a new project. Were not gods. Even as I write Ted Cruz is in the somewhat awkward position of having to accept the endorsement of people like Lindsey Graham and Jeb Bushjust as Trump has scarcely refused the thumbs-up of Chris Christie and McCain running-mate Sarah Palin (who unlike Graham and Bush needs to find a job). To brand everybody with the establishment E who cuts deals of any kind is to reduce our choices to a handful of living saints like Michelle Bachmann. Remember how she ended up? One must rather look at the frequency and quality of deals being struck. Who told Iowa voters to their face No Im sorrybut your ethanol subsidies will have to go"… and who told FOX News on the subject of immigration Everything is negotiable"?
