Flyin’ Ted: A gaffe for the ages
In Washington, there is nearuniversal agreement that “nobody likes Ted Cruz,” said Dan Zak in The Washington Post. But the loathing of the Texas Republican hit new heights last week after he flew off to the Cancún Ritz-Carlton while more than a million of “his ice-blasted constituents” were sitting in blacked-out, frozen homes watching their pipes burst, boiling water to drink, and “defecating in buckets.” After being photographed at the airport on the way to 80-degree Mexico with his wife and two daughters, Cruz was shamed into lugging his bulging suitcase back to Houston three days earlier than planned. He had the gall to blame his daughters, saying they had begged for the trip, but leaked group texts showed Cruz’s wife whining to friends that she was “FREEZING” and saying she’d found a Cancún hotel room for just $309 a night.
“Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” said David Graham in TheAtlantic.com, and “Ted Cruz jetted to Cancún.” Cruz’s biggest sin was not the hypocrisy of a faux good ol’ boy populist abandoning his constituents; “it’s that he couldn’t think of any way he could use his power as a U.S. senator to help Texans in need.” Yes, Cruz is a spineless hack “who voted to overturn the election in favor of the guy who once called his wife ugly,” said Tiana Lowe in Washington Examiner.com, “but he isn’t stupid.” The Princeton- and Harvard-educated Cruz,
50, was expected to make another presidential run in 2024. So what was he thinking when he booked a getaway to sunny Mexico while his constituents froze in the dark?
Look at what two of his fiercest Democratic rivals managed to do, said Amanda Carpenter in TheBulwark.com. Beto O’Rourke, whom Cruz narrowly defeated in 2018, “organized a massive phone bank to check on Texas seniors, see if they needed help, and direct them to resources.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) went to Texas and helped raise $2 million for people in need. But Cruz not only fled our “frozen hell,” said the Houston Chronicle in an editorial, he ignored federal guidelines and took his family to Mexico—a “Level 4” coronavirus hot spot. Now his kids have to quarantine and miss class. “It was obviously a mistake,” he conceded upon his forced return. You think? “Take our advice, senator, and resign.”