Politics: Ted Talks

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Politics Ted Talks Why Sen. Ted Cruz gets rewarded for saying a lot of things that no one would take seriously anywhere else. By David Weigel Posted Monday, Feb 25, 2013, at 10:30 AM ET If it achieves nothing else, the Senate Republicans' filibuster of Chuck Hagel inaugurated the age of Ted Cruz. The day after the vote, the New York Times, Politico, and the Washington Post ran versions of the same Cruz profile. By accusing Chuck Hagel of lying on his disclosure forms and building consensus for a one-week delay—just a few more documents, please—Cruz had made enemies out of everyone on the conservative blacklist. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Cruz had acted "out of bounds." Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, viewed by the right as an accidental senator who rigged the Republican primary to make sure she'd face Todd Akin, compared Cruz to Joe McCarthy. That was exactly what Cruz wanted. All of it. Portraying his opponents as traitors-in-training has been Cruz's shtick since he started running for Senate three years ago. On Friday, Jane Mayer dug into her 2010 notebooks and found Cruz telling an Americans for Prosperity crowd that Harvard Law School, in the early 1990s, employed 12 professors "who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government." Cruz's old professors, reached by Mayer, had no earthly idea what he was talking about. The Huffington Post borg repackaged this story with the headline "TED MCCARTHY," and the resultant comment thread outpaced the one beneath "LOOK: What Women Really Look Like Naked." Cruz pulled this off with less than two months of experience in elected office. Before winning the Senate ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate UPDATE: Not Even the Onion Thought Its Quvenzhane Wallis Tweet Was Funny Argo, F--k Yourself Are Cable Companies Hoping Usage-Based Internet Access Will Help Thwart Netflix?	Advertisement
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