Texas Sen. Ted Cruz last night, using rather colorful imagery to attack his fellow Senate Republicans for not filibustering the final deal to reopen government and avoid default:
If you think about it, the House Republicans marched into battle. And it should have been the Senate Republicans riding like the cavalry to support them. If the Senate Republicans had stood united with the House Republicans, that's how we would have won this fight. Instead Senate Republicans were divided and became basically an air force dive-boming the House Republicans and conservatives.
So if Ted Cruz had gotten his way, Senate Republicans would have remained united and filibustered any legislation that ended the shutdown or avoided default without defunding Obamacare. In his dream, they would have kept on doing this until President Obama caved, and begged them to stop inflicting damage on the United States. It would have been a glorious victory for conservatives, according to Cruz.
But here's the thing: If Ted Cruz really believed this strategy had any hope of working, shouldn't he have tried to filibuster the deal last night? If he were a true right wing hero, shouldn't he have taken to the floor and instead of fauxlibustering, delivered the real thing? Instead, he caved like a wimp.
Of course, there's always the possibility that's he's not a wimp, but a stone cold liar who knew that he'd already milked the shutdown for as much personal gain as he was going to get—he says he's already added two million names to his fundraising list. Keeping up his charade wasn't going to help him build the list any further, not at this point, so with his personal political objectives satisfied, he threw in the towel, not for the good of the country, but because there was nothing good left to gain for himself.