{"id":11207,"date":"2013-10-07T17:49:28","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T17:49:28","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-10-07T17:49:28","modified_gmt":"2013-10-07T17:49:28","slug":"media_libs_confounded_by_ted_cruz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/10\/07\/media_libs_confounded_by_ted_cruz\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Libs Confounded by Ted Cruz"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: We\u2019ve got a couple of sound bites here. First up is Jim VandeHei, the executive editor of the Politico. This is on Slay the Nation on CBS Sunday during the roundtable. It\u2019s a conversation here between VandeHei and Dana Milbank and I think Gwen Ifill\u2019s even part of this.<\/p>\n

VANDEHEI: What\u2019s different this time around that in — if you think back to that \u201996 debate, there were actually moderates in Washington. Even today when you talk about a Republican moderate in the House, we need to find a new word. They\u2019re not moderates —<\/p>\n

IFILL: No.<\/p>\n

VANDEHEI: — they\u2019re not pro-life, they\u2019re not pro-environment, they\u2019re not pro-labor.<\/p>\n

MILBANK: Yeah, I think —<\/p>\n

VANDEHEI: That\u2019s what a Republican —<\/p>\n

MILBANK: I think that —<\/p>\n

VANDEHEI: — moderate used to be. You could say slightly less conservative Republican who might be willing to wheel and deal, but it\u2019s just a different world in Washington.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, damn it. There aren\u2019t any liberal Republicans. There aren\u2019t enough of them that will cave with us anymore. It\u2019s not like in 1995 when we could scare their pants off. Now they won\u2019t cave. Now they won\u2019t agree with us. Not enough squeamish, linguini spine Republicans left. That\u2019s what they\u2019re saying. And Helen Thomas, if she were alive, would know I\u2019m right about this, just like I was right about JFK. JFK tried, I\u2019m telling you. Don\u2019t doubt me on this stuff. I don\u2019t know what she did, but I\u2019m telling you there wasn\u2019t any dating JFK. It was get in, get it and get out, folks. Come on. What are we talking about here? And I know you\u2019re thinking, “Rush, not possible, Helen Thomas.” Media folks, media. It\u2019s called influence, buying, whatever you want to call it. I mean, blindfolds, I don\u2019t know. Eyes wide shut, there\u2019s any number of ways this can happen.<\/p>\n

So anyway, they\u2019re bemoaning the fact there just aren\u2019t enough Republicans we can scare. There just aren\u2019t enough moderate or liberal Republicans. And then that became there weren\u2019t enough reasonable Republicans willing to lose for the good of the Democrats. That\u2019s really what they mean. There aren\u2019t enough reasonable Republicans willing to lose for the good of the Democrats. Here\u2019s Dana Milbank.<\/p>\n

MILBANK: I think that\u2019s the dynamic and that\u2019s the difference from \u201995 and \u201996 is you\u2019re not necessarily dealing with reasonable people. They\u2019re rational because they are following their political self interest, but you\u2019ve got, you know, maybe 50 diehard conservatives in the House and you\u2019ve got 150 Republicans who are terrified of being primaried by one of those and they have no reason to budge even if it\u2019s doing something bad to their own party and to the country.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Folks, I can\u2019t tell you how perfect this is to illustrate the way this town thinks. There aren\u2019t any good Republicans anymore. And what is a good Republican? One who will compromise and give away his own side to help the Democrats. That\u2019s a reasonable Republican. A reasonable Republican is one who agrees with the Democrats at the moment of truth. There just aren\u2019t enough of those anymore. And 50 Republicans, these holdouts, these Tea Party people, and they\u2019re extremists, they\u2019re nut cases, they\u2019re wackos. And the real reasonable Republicans are afraid of being primaried by these people.<\/p>\n

So most Republicans are cowards. The 50 other Republicans holding them hostage are raving lunatics. And in that group of 200 there isn\u2019t any of them willing to compromise to make the Democrats look good and so congress and Washington suck as far as these people are concerned. Moving on, Dana Milbank again. We\u2019re still on Face the Nation and Bob Schieffer\u2019s moderating this. You haven\u2019t heard him yet but he said, “Well, talk to me about Ted Cruz. This is really unusual in this town. It\u2019s built on seniority. Here you have a freshman senator not only emerge as a leader of this in the Senate but is actually leading the House Republicans, sometimes against their own leader.”<\/p>\n

MILBANK: He\u2019s a complete phony. I met Ted Cruz 15 years ago. He wasn\u2019t some Tea Party guy. He was an ambitious kid working for the Bush campaign, Ivy League debater, and basically what he saw is, “Hey, Sarah Palin can do that in 2010; I can ride this Tea Party. I can take it to town and I can get really famous, really fast.” He\u2019s absolutely right. He\u2019s a real smart guy. He\u2019s playing this game very well.<\/p>\n

RUSH: He\u2019s a phony. That\u2019s Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: “Ted Cruz is a phony. He doesn\u2019t really mean it. He\u2019s just using us. He\u2019s using us. All he wants to do is be famous like everybody on Facebook and Twitter.” You know what really bugs them about Ted Cruz? He is one of them. He went to Harvard. He went to Yale. He did win the debate contest. His grades are better than theirs.<\/p>\n

He has their pedigree and he\u2019s not one of them and they can\u2019t stand it. They literally can\u2019t stand it. It\u2019s sort of the same way they hated Bush. Bush had a Harvard MBA, Yale, Skull and Bones, and all this. But he wasn\u2019t one of them. They just couldn\u2019t handle it. So now Cruz? “Yeah, he\u2019s just an ambition, a complete phony! He saw what Sarah Palin did.” You know, we\u2019ve all heard of Ted Cruz\u2019s father too.<\/p>\n

I guess Ted Cruz\u2019s father is a phony. You know, Ted sounds just like his father, if you ask me. His father is a great orator as well. His father is a great illustration. They can\u2019t handle this. They don\u2019t know how to absorb this, and so it\u2019s time for the personal destruction to begin. He\u2019s a phony. He doesn\u2019t believe any of this. It\u2019s just, he\u2019s a smart guy. He\u2019s just trying to get famous.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Jim VandeHei from the Politico reacting to that.<\/p>\n

VANDEHEI: Cruz is a political genius to some extent. Like, he is one of the few people who\u2019s recognized that politics today is so different than it was ten years ago. Nobody cares what leadership has to say. We have lots of weak leaders, and the grassroots… If you\u2019re clever about intervening in primaries, if you\u2019re clever about exploiting campaign finance laws, which very much work to the favor of outside groups at the expense of the establishment —<\/p>\n

IFILL: Well, then the question —<\/p>\n

VANDEHEI: — you can have awesome power.<\/p>\n

RUSH: We don\u2019t know what Gwen\u2019s question is. The guy interrupted her and didn\u2019t let her finish. “Well, the question is…” and we never heard from her anymore. The guys didn\u2019t care, apparently, what her question was. So VandeHei, “Oh, he\u2019s a genius. He\u2019s a political genius,” and Milbank says, “Oh, absolutely. He\u2019s a phony, but he\u2019s a genius. It\u2019s like one of the few people who\u2019s recognized that politics today is so different than it was 10 years ago.” Anyway, I… (interruption)<\/p>\n

I know they fawned over Obama who had done nothing. But you know why they fawned over Obama. (interruption) Come on! Why did they fawn over Obama? (interruption) You tell me. (interruption) Well, so\u2019s Cruz. They said he was “clean and articulate.” Cruz is every bit as clean and every bit as articulate as Obama is. Why\u2019d they fawn over Obama? He gave a speech. He gave a speech. He had Mario Cuomo-itis. They fawned over Cuomo in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Cuomo never was able to capitalize or parlay it, but Obama did. He gave a speech at the 2004 convention, and then somebody came along… The Democrats hadn\u2019t realized, “You know, this guy is immune to criticism! We can\u2019t lose if this guy gets the nomination because nobody could ever criticize anything he does. We can destroy anybody who tries and call them racists.” (interruption) No they can\u2019t do the same with Cruz even though he\u2019s Hispanic.<\/p>\n

Because Cruz is Canadian, and the rap on Cruz is he really isn\u2019t even qualified. He really isn\u2019t Hispanic. He\u2019s not a minority. He\u2019s a conservative! There\u2019s really no such thing as a conservative minority. It\u2019s just not possible. Here\u2019s Cruz. This is Sunday morning, State of the Union on CNN. Candy Crowley said, “Do you think that some facet of the president\u2019s health care plan should be attached to an increase in the debt ceiling?”<\/p>\n

CRUZ: The debt ceiling historically has been among the best leverage that Congress has —<\/p>\n

CROWLEY: So…?<\/p>\n

CRUZ: — to rein in the executives.<\/p>\n

CROWLEY: So yes?<\/p>\n

CRUZ: Yes. Yes. There\u2019s great historical precedent. Since 1978 we\u2019ve raised the debt ceiling 55 times. A majority of those times, 28 times, Congress has attached very specific and stringent requirements. Many of the most significant spending restraints– things like Gramm-Rudman, things like sequestration — came through the debt ceiling and so the president\u2019s demand, jack up the nation\u2019s credit card with no limits, no constraints, it\u2019s not a reasonable demand.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is why he ticks them off. He knows what Gramm-Rudman is! He can talk about Gramm-Rudman in a sentence as though he was there. Guys like VandeHei and Milbank say, “He\u2019s not supposed to be able to do that! He\u2019s an idiot. He\u2019s a phony.” However, I\u2019ve got to tell you something. I\u2019m not sure I agree with combining these two things. Now, Ted Cruz knows far more what he\u2019s doing on this than I do because he\u2019s there and this is his job and I\u2019m but a mere pawn commentator in the game of life.<\/line><\/p>\n

But the debt limit thing, if not done right, we could squander all of the positives we have picked up on Obamacare because this business that Republicans “refused to pay the debts,” people care as much about that as they care about negotiation. Now, if Cruz can find a way to combine these two and make both of them pay off, fine. I would love for that to be the case. But I would just as soon kick this debt ceiling thing down the road a month or two. Just get a little spending bill, pay the bills. “Here, Obama, here\u2019s your bill,” and make him veto it as piecemeal.<\/p>\n

Just like they\u2019ve made him veto every other little so-called piecemeal thing. I\u2019d keep the pressure on myself.<\/p>\n

But again, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing. I\u2019m so pathetic anyway, I don\u2019t know what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: We\u2019ve got a couple of sound bites here. First up is Jim VandeHei, the executive editor of the Politico. This is on Slay the Nation on CBS Sunday during the roundtable. It\u2019s a conversation here between VandeHei and Dana Milbank and I think Gwen Ifill\u2019s even part of this. 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