The “maverick” and gutsy side of Arizona Senator John McCain surfaced again today when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 21 hour filibuster ended and McCain got up and blasted Cruz for comparing those against defunding Obama care to those who appeased the Nazis during World War II. It is now generally acknowledged by many in both parties that when a partisan is losing the argument he/she/it raises the Nazi comparison. McCain barely minced words:
“I resoundingly reject that allegation. That allegation, in my view, does a great disservice,” McCain said on the Senate floor. “I do not agree with that comparison; I think it’s wrong.”
Cruz had said Tuesday on the Senate floor in reference to those who are skeptical of the effort to undo Obamacare: “I suspect those same pundits who say it can’t be done, if it had been in the 1940s we would have been listening to them. Then they would have made television. They would have gotten beyond carrier pigeons and beyond letters and they would have been on tv and they would have been saying, ‘You cannot defeat the Germans.'”
McCain said he had spoken with Cruz about the remark, and that the Texas senator had explained his comment was in reference to pundits, and not fellow senators.
“I find that a difference without a distinction. I find that something that I think I have to respond to,” the Arizona senator said. “I do not begrudge Sen. Cruz or any other senator who wants to come talk as long as they want to or as long as they can, depending on the rules of the Senate. But I do disagree strongly that, to allege that there are people today who are like those who, prior to World War II, didn’t stand up and oppose the atrocities that were taking place in Europe.”
McCain noted in his speech that he was in the Senate during the 2009-10 debate over passing Obamacare, and that he campaigned for re-election in 2010 on his opposition to Obamacare. But he said the voters had rendered their verdict on the health care reform program in the 2012 election.
“The people spoke — they spoke much to my dismay. But they spoke, and they re-elected the president of the United States,” McCain said.
Here’s a video on his speech that offers much more of his remarks:
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McCain’s comments reflect a split over Republicans over not just Cruz’s strategy but Cruz himself. Many right wing bloggers and talk show political culture Republicans raise Cruz for having guts, but to others (including Republicans) he seems to be trying to get his party to jump off the political cliff. And, no matter what the outcome, talk about GOP rebranding is now officially dead — and the odds were always against it.
Cruz may be disliked by other Senators including Republicans (he is), and anathema to many independents, centrists, and moderates, and a seeming Christmas present come true to Democratic strategists. But there is one place he’s highly popular: talk radio. Which isn’t surprising since he’s the manifestation of the Republican Party’s demonizing, hyper-partisan talk radio political culture. McCain was never popular among talkers; Cruz is.
It is one of the quaint political ironies of our time that, for all of Republicans’ whinging about liberal media bias, few places give right-wing rigidity greater voice and encouragement than the rowdy land of talk radio. And why not? Demagogues like Rush and Mark Levin aren’t worried about trivial matters like governance. Their job is to fuel a galvanizing blend of fear and outrage among listeners. They aren’t even that interested in getting ideological compadres elected to office. After all, rage-mongering bomb-throwers thrive best when the oh-so-loathsome enemy is in power.
Unsurprisingly, the junior senator from Texas is manna to talk radio warriors. Like them, he doesn’t care a whit about governance or repairing his party’s damaged brand or much of anything beyond showing himself to be the manliest, least-squishy conservative ass-kicker around. And so, the more that Republican lawmakers, pollsters, strategists, and fundraisers voice distress and dismay at Cruz’s crusade to shut down the government before allowing further funding of Obamacare, the more fiercely the talk radio brigade defends him.
It will surprise no one that Rushbo has Cruz’s back. In one of last week’s broadcasts, Limbaugh offered his take on “the spat now between the House and the Senate, House Republicans and Ted Cruz on the defund Obamacare thing.” In a nutshell: All those House Republicans miffed at Cruz for making them pass a bill he knew he couldn’t get through the Senate were whiners who failed to recognize Cruz’s outside-the-box genius…
And further down:
For good measure, Hannity bestowed upon Cruz the ultimate compliment by comparing his rabble-rousing ways to those of…who else?…Ronald Reagan.
In his Monday broadcast, meanwhile, Mark Levin was less delicate in championing Cruz’s abandoned plan to seriously (as opposed to symbolically) filibuster the entire House funding bill rather than allow the Senate to strip out the defund-Obamacare piece and pass the rest. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s refusal to rally the troops to Cruz’s cause prompted Levin to sneer, “The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, just stabbed Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in the back.” After slapping at the nay-saying House leadership and “their disciples all over TV,” Levin slammed McConnell for supporting Obamacare and huffed, “All the Repubics”—no, that is not a typo: “Re-pubics.” Get it?—“are lining up in that position. Amazing isn’t it? Absolutely amazing.”
Ultimately, none of what Cruz is doing is especially amazing when you consider the context. For years, the GOP was content to sit back while demagogues like Rush and Levin and Mark Steyn and countless others kept the base whipped up with overheated anti-government, anti-establishment, insider-vs.-outsider rhetoric. Now, Ted Cruz is simply bringing that overwrought, purity-obsessed, compromise-phobic, who-cares-what-this-does-to-the-party-or-the-nation approach to the Senate. Apparently, it’s an approach that Cruz’s colleagues find much less appealing close up.
Read it in full.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.