Opinion by Hal Brown
I have no doubt president wannabe Ted Cruz’s intention was to get more coverage than anybody else who spoke at CPAC on Friday. He seems to have succeeded if what was shown on MSNBC is any indication. In fact as I wrote this I was watching “Morning Joe” and the commentator describing the Liverpool vs. Sheffield United soccer game made fun of Cruz's freedom scream.
I have to admit that I was impressed by this Cruz sentence:
“You can French kiss the guy next to you yelling ‘Abolish the police’ and no one will get infected; but if you go to church and say ‘Amazing grace,’ everyone is going to die.”
The imagery of two people French kissing at a Black Lives Matter protest and comparing it to going to church and saying Amazing grace is pretty good, although he should have said “singing” instead of “saying” Amazing grace. I’m not sure what it says about the inner workings of the mind of Cruz that he imagines people French kissing at a protest. Hell, I don’t even want to think about it.
You can watch Ted Cruz’s 16 minute CPAC speech here or just his “in the immortal words of William Wallace, freedom” shriek here:
Transcript of full speech here.
Here’s the context of his “William Wallace, freedom” shriek:
“I’m going to close with these words of encouragement, these are dark days and the media tells us this is the new Galactic Empire forever and a thousand years. But already, Joe Biden and the radicals in his administration, they are already overshooting, they are already going too far. Their policies don’t work. They are disasters. They are bad. They are destroying jobs. They are stripping our freedom.”
“And there is a natural pendulum to politics (IMO, sounds good but not true, HB). And the country will come back to sanity. And mark my words 2022 is going to be a fantastic election year and so is 2024 as we stand together and defend liberty, defend the Constitution, defend the Bill of Rights of every American. In the immortal words of William Wallace. Freedom!”
Cruz knows his history and at least some pop culture. I had to look in Wikipedia to figure out why he was quoting William Wallace and to be reminded why the name seemed familiar to me. His reference to the Galactic Empire may have gone over many of the heads of members of the audience. I don’t know how many MAGA’s are Star Wars fan. However, I am pretty sure hardly anybody in his audience knew who and what he was talking about with his William Wallace reference.
Sir William Wallace was a Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence.
….
Since his death, Wallace has obtained an iconic status far beyond his homeland. He is the known best here because of the Academy Award-winning film Braveheart starring Mel Gibson
Obviously Cruz was impressed by Mel Gibson playing Wallace yelling “Freedom” in the 1995 movie “Braveheart” (video). Joe Scarborough said they obviously didn’t have acting school at Harvard or Princeton. You can watch Mel Gibson and compare his “freedom” with Cruz’s. I think Cruz’s rendition was very good. Coincidentally the homophobic and racist bigot Gibson and Cruz both are equally reprehensible.
Besides Trump when it came to putting on a good show at CPAC and having a burning desire to be president combined the Cruz is in competition with Josh Hawley (watch full 15 minute speech here). Their styles are very different. Hawley came across as reasonable enough while Cruz was unhinged. I wondered if he was drunk.
Unlike Trump’s hour long speech which was written for him, there’s an excellent chance that both Cruz and Hawley wrote their own speeches.
I doubt it mattered to anyone attending CPAC, or will matter if he runs in the Republican primary, that Ted Cruz is considered to be the most hated Senator among his colleagues, that is if they even are aware of this. The best known quote about this is: In a 2016 interview with CNN, fellow Republican senator Lindsey Graham “joked” that “if you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you”.
Read article:
Will CPAC 2021 prove to have been the Trump Tower golden elevator for Ted Cruz if Trump decides not to run?
Take the poll and share what you think.
The Poll:
Here’s a list from Ballotpedia of those mentioned as running in the Republican primary if Donald Trump doesn’t run. If you had to put money on who it will be who would you chose?
- Greg Abbott, governor of Texas[8]
- Bob Corker, former senator from Tennessee[9]
- Tom Cotton, U.S. senator from Arkansas[10]
- Ted Cruz, U.S. senator from Texas[11]
- Doug Ducey, governor of Arizona[9]
- Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida[4]
- Mike DeWine, governor of Ohio[6]
- Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations[4]
- Larry Hogan, governor of Maryland[6]
- Josh Hawley, U.S. senator from Missouri[4]
- Mike Lee, U.S. senator from Utah[8]
- Mike Pence, vice president of the United States[4]
- Mike Pompeo, secretary of state[11]
- Marco Rubio, U.S. senator from Florida[12]
- Ben Sasse, U.S. senator from Nebraska[8]
- Rick Scott, U.S. senator from Florida[13]
- Tim Scott, U.S. senator from South Carolina[8]
- Tucker Carlson, Fox News anchor[15]
- Donald Trump Jr., businessman and political adviser[4]
- Ivanka Trump, businesswoman and political adviser[10]