Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer continued his criticism of Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday, asking, “Where is he now?”
“How exactly was he going to achieve abolition of Obamacare? Explain that to me. Has he ever explained it? And where is he now?” Krauthammer said on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”
Krauthammer, who has previously hit Cruz (R-Texas) on the strategy of shutdown to defund Obamacare, included Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) in his questioning and said the two went home to “have lunch.”
“I mean his sidekick, Sen. [Mike] Lee said, ‘Oh, we’re past Obamacare. We moved on.’ These are the generals who lead people into the Battle of [the] Little Bighorn and then go home and have lunch and leave the troops out there? Where are they? Where are the generals? What’s their strategy to get abolition of Obamacare?” Krauthammer said.
Krauthammer did emphasize while he is on the ideological side of repealing Obamacare, there was no strategy laid out by Cruz.
“I argued [to repeal Obamacare] in ’09 and ’10. I argued it every week in my writing, on television … all of us were in the trenches. Cruz arrives on the scene and pretends he’s just begun the fight against Obamacare,” Krauthammer said.
He continued, “I’ve been calling this the ‘kamikaze brigade’… ‘the suicide caucus.’ I’m all for charging the barricades, but you’ve got to show me how to penetrate them. … And people are saying Republicans are in retreat. They’re not in retreat, there never was a way to abolish Obamacare now,” Krauthammer said.
Mr. Krauthammer said it far better than I could. Cruz sure left everyone holding the bag. Talk about cut and run. Wasn’t that the buzz word during the Bush administraton? Echoes of “You just want to cut and run…” ringing in my head.
Since Cruz is a Senator….and therefore has no power in the Senate at this time to bring forth bills,…and the HOUSE did what they did on their own….how is this Cruz’s fault? He is SUPPORTING the House…not leading it.
And since you are concerned about the GOP’s lack of plans…but you seem to support Krauthammer’s opinion….where is your concern for HIS lack of plan since he supported repeal?
I don’t generically support anyone’s opinion. I found conservative Krauthammer’s opinion piece interesting.
Why are you protecting Cruz? He’s a big boy. Somewhere along the line, he’s got to own what he did.
I will tell you what Cruz did since you must have missed the sirens’ call. Instead of listening to Boehner who is their leader, about 60 TP listened up when they heard the dog whistle and went into what clearly was rebellion against the person who is the leader. I have no idea what control Cruz has over them. But some of them and Cruz have to own it. There is still too much denial and too much disputing the low poll numbers.
It wont work and the denial is contemptible.
Re the control Cruz has over the House Rs: they’re afraid of being primaried, Moon. I think that’s what it comes down to. Virtually none of them has anything to fear in a generall election.
Anyone over 10 years old with a three-digit IQ could see that this was, as McCain said, a fool’s errand. A lot of us civilians here in the lowly blogosphere saw it plain as day. But some folks would rather make fools of themselves in public, damage the economy, and make the US a laughing stock internationally, than have to spend down their war chests or fuss with an opponent even nuttier than they in a district primary.
I need to make sure I vote for real Republicans in primaries and not the ship of clowns.
By the way, to answer Dr. Krauthammer’s question: Senator Cruz is raising money hand over fist, that’s where he is. They might as well give him the keys to the Mint and let him print it up at whatever clip he decides he needs.
I think Cruz ought to go to Hollywood. He is quite the actor. He is actually quite convincing…if you lean his way to start with.
I wonder if he can make more money acting or from honorarium?
Protecting Cruz?
He doesn’t need my protection.
The House did what it did. Cruz offered support and called out the liars in the Republican party. One of these days…those Republicans will learn that their constituents expect them to live up to their statements that they use to get elected.
If they can’t handle that…then they shouldn’t say it or they should get out of the way.
I am curious what you think the Republicans lied about?
I listened to Cruz last night and all I heard was one lie after the other. He is a player and was just setting the audience up. actually he was dealing with a lot of opinion and very little fact. I am not sure that finding people who share our opinion really counts for much other than that.
The Republican Party has broken in two and Cruz is out there leading the most broken part. If moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans formed a third party… I believe that it would become a force on the national scene. I can only hope.
I think it would be a force to be reckoned with. What would we call such a party? Sort of a Daddy Bush/Clinton hybrid party….
You should have heard those two young turks (sorry, Turkey!), Cruz and Lee, orating at that big meeting yesterday. Plus Rand!
Then we have the good doctor, Ben Carson, who claims that Obamacare is the worst thing that has happened since slavery! SLAVERY! I mean, really ….
Where did you see this?
I saw a couple scenes of Ben Carson, compliments of Rev Al.
I think this sets up conservatives nicely in the 2014 election. Obamacare and the federal debt are going to cause a lot of angst over the next year. The R’s backed down before any damage was done to the economy, but it demonstrated the unwillingness of D’s to accommodate the opposition on anything.
The latest CBO projections show that the debt is 73% of GDP and will continue on an upward spiral due to increased cost of entitlements. On top of that, the un-subsidized premium for an Obamacare silver plan purchased from an exchange in Virginia for a family of four will be about $700 per month.
This suggests that out-of-pocket expenses for the middle class are poised to increase. The D’s will have gotten their way and thus completely own the result.
Just out of curiosity, why is a crappy plan costing anyone $700 a month for a family of 4? Don’t the silver plans have huge deductibles?
Kelly, you are overlooking the national rage at the Republican party. Check out the polls. Unless a bunch of Democrats are going to go conservative, some of the hostage taking tactics are going to be owned by the Republicans.
Do I think the general electorate will remember into 2014? no, probably not. However, activists will remind them.
I don’t see that the republicans have backed down. The government is still closed and the debt ceiling hasn’t been raised. These just aren’t things to negotiate.
I am listening to Faux News this morning and I have never heard so much ignorance and lies. It is worse than it used to be and they don’t even try to hide what they are doing. The apology about the Prez using his own money to prop up a mosque happened around 6:10 am. No mention since then and it was almost unrecognizable. Anna never took ownership of the screw up either. She blamed the researchers.
No wonder people are so stirred up if this is the only channel they watch. I am almost hoarse from yelling “Lying $%^&*() at the TV.”
Kelly, do you not see accepting a clean CR based on status quo which includes sequestration levels any sort of “deal?” I see it as a huge concession. I think we can all agree that sequestration is no way to do budget cuts.
@Moon-howler
A clean CR was the non-negotiable demand that the Ds that have repeated incessantly over the last two weeks. I fail to see how getting exactly what was demanded can be viewed as a concession.
The R’s have dropped the effort to delay Obamacare in a CR/debt limit bill. They have essentially capitulated on what Obama wanted most. You are just seeing the terms of the surrender being negotiated. The debt limit will be raised and CR passed.
I just went to the web site and punched in the particulars to estimate premiums for insurance purchased on the Virginia exchange. My viewpoint about the high cost of the ACA has been expressed ad infinitum.
You might believe that these things SHOULD not be negotiated, but historically they have been by both parties.
Anna is not on Fox News to display her mind.
That was not an apology that I heard. No, she isn’t displaying her mind. I will agree there. Not even sure she has one.
I don’t recall a time in history where a law was held captive or the party not in office tried to shut down the government to get rid of it. Please, give me a comparable law and year. I also don’t recall other than in 2011 a threat to not raise the debt ceiling so our country would go into fault. Again, the year please.
As for the $700 policy, I expect that is before the discounts are credited.
Clean CR…the clean CR that the democrats said they would take is based on sequestration. The fact that they will take a CR is a concession because those ARE the sequestration figures. Obama could have demanded a full appropriations bill that id away with the sequestration figures. That is what he wanted.
Virginia has an exchange?
How about this? A centralized exchange run by the Feds that includes Virginia.
I would name my third party the Modern American Party (MAP). They could MAP out a mature future for our nation that met the largest goals of its citizens. It would be there to attract moderates, academics, theoreticians, political scientists, artists, teachers and philosophers. Their goal would not be to hold office at any expense, but to moderate public discourse with facts and true history. They would focus on the large issues and not be buried by petty things. They would shine light onto those that seek office by pulling the flag over peoples eyes, by pointing out invisible boogeymen, by invoking god’s blessings, by declaring that their opponents are thespians or have other human failings.
It takes a very special kind of perception to conclude that anything that has happened in the last month “sets up conservatives nicely in the 2014 elections.” [Kelly @ 0826]. Leaving to one side my usual complaint about misapplication of the term “conservative” to virtually anything that self-applies that label these days, I would think that the last month will still be exacting a price a year from now, regardless of how it ends.
@Moon-howler
I heard and saw him on one of the newscasts last night.
Don’t remember which one.
Very rough morning here. About once a month I try to listen to the lying foxy roxy friends on the weekend. Today was awful. Its a continual barrage against the President and everything Democratic. Why don’t they just rename themselves the Republican channel. maybe even the tea party channel.
The lies are just non-stop. One got my goat in particular. I have heard all morning on Faux News at various times about the tourist who stopped to photograph Old Faithful and who isn’t allowed go past the barricades and who was chased off by a fleet of park rangers.
Oh Please. That is such an effen lie. Whoever is repeating that whopper has never been to Yellowstone. Old Faithful is deep into the park. The entrances to the park have been closed off. Tourists aren’t there or if they are, they have snuck in.
Why would a network just keep repeating a lie?
I al also tired of hearing about why the parks are closed or the momuments are closed. They are closed to protect the parks and monuments. That should be obvious.
People are stupid as grizzly doo to start with. Let’s just take Yellowstone. Over 100 years ago they had to station a military unit there to protect the park. People would come in and throw chairs and other crap down the geysers. They literally ruined a couple of the geysers. They killed the animals and taunted the buffalo. Some A-H is always getting butted and gored by buffalo because they are too stupid not to tease a wild animal 3 times bigger and heavier than an ordinary cow.
They get lost, they get mauled by grizzly and other bears, they faill in geysers and set forest fires because of their inherent stupidity…the same gene that makes them tease the buffalo.
Why would anyone want to keep our gems, our precious resources, open to the public without protection? Selfish people would be my guess. People who don’t give a rat’s ass about the treasures of our nation.
Glenn Beck is supposedly out on the mall today cleaning up trash and litter. Good. That’s a good job for him. I hope he stopped by and got a couple of those banana republicans to go out there and help him.
He has been sitting back and aiding and abetting this nonsense. He should be helping.
@Scout
It is clear that big-government, establishment Republicans want to use this setback as an opportunity to beat up conservatives. Your rhetoric is in line with that. However, not much changed in Congress after the 1995 shutdown, so there is no reason to panic now. In a year, there may well be significant dissatisfaction due to Obamacare and additional revenue collected to service the debt. If conservatives put forth pro-growth proposals to grow the economy, this could generate support for conservative positions and candidates.
I think that “big government” and “establishment” republicans are both expressions that are used as ‘in-house’ terms of war and really are pretty meaningless.
I probably would have to ask what ‘big government’ means or what establishment means in this context.
That rhetoric seems to attempt to take the anarchy out of current tea party republicans and clean them up and make them respectable by denigrating the good memebers of the GOP. Sort of like Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan wouldn’t be allowed in the party today.
“If conservatives put forth pro-growth proposals to grow the economy, this could generate support for conservative positions and candidates.” True enough, that is if they don’t try to ram those proposals down our throats or up our collective V-jay-jays. Based on our past experiences with the tea party types, that ain’t a gonna happen. Never hatchee GI. No way, Jose.
There has been way too much obsession the V-jay-jays from people calling themselves Republican recently. I would have a very difficult time pulling the lever for an R. The last R I liked and voted for got sideswiped by a religious right tea party type.
What price would that be, exactly? Frank Wolf’s margin of victory turns out to be smaller than it normally is? VA8 and VA11 aren’t winnable, anyway, so it doesn’t really matter whether or not and extra 100K disaffected moonbats turn out in those districts.
As for Pelosi being speaker again? The safe districts are now redder than Barack’s daddy, so good luck with that strategy.
You are making a sweeping statement about every congressional district in the United States. Now, while you might very well be accurate about Virginia (our Republicans did a very good job of carving up the state so that the riverman of Kilmarnock and I have much in common) I seriously doubt if it is true in the entire United States. Do you seriously think that the banana republicans have finished making asses of themselves? I sure don’t.
What a great Saturday, things are coming into alignment. The Hokies beat Pitt. Obamas rejected both the house and the Senate compromise and Collins is embarassed (should be), Maher went off, people are seeing the damage a fool and a traitor can do to foreign policy – see Eqypt and the decline in military funding, the Park Service is under fire – Albany is now paying to keep the Statue of Liberty open, the IRS / White House e-mails are out, somebody is going to jail and the IRS will never be allowed to manage Obamacare, the UFCW is striking over Obamacare – just the beginning, PBS’s Tavis Smiley, “ black Americans worse off five years into the Obama presidency”
and the best yet today, John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Clinton, notes that President Obama’s dramatic intransigence has paved the way for incredible public outrage against both him and Congress, with both hitting approval ratings lows. Nonetheless, Obama takes solace in the fact that Republicans are being blamed more than Democrats for the current impasse, thanks largely in part to media coverage. Truth is coming forward.
I chanced upon a website that compares Denmark to the US (www.ifitweremyhome.com). As we know, Denmark is a socialist country headed by a monarch. 60% of their income goes to the government as taxes and make 22.41% less money then their US counterparts. Socialism, Monarchs and taxes, everything we hate.
The Danes have a 53.76% more chance of being employed. They use 50.19% less electricity than we do. They consume 45.48% less oil. They experience 35.56% less of a class divide and have a 30.13% less chance of dying in infancy. They have 24.8% fewer babies. They spend 43.85% less on health care, have 13.8% more free time. The Danes are 66.67% less likely to have HIV/AIDS and they live 0.23 years longer. Education through college is free as is their health care. They are consistently rated as one of the happiest countries to live in.
I propose that Virginia secede from the US and join Denmark.
That’ll work if you like eating herring.
What too many Republicans seem to want is to secede from reality, and apply for citizenship in some weird utopian suppply-side America populated with happy smiling white people and picket fences.