Why is there so much “news” about a freshman Republican senator who is being repudiated by most of his own party? Why do “journalists” still collude in over-inflation of such marginal figures as Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cahn and now Ted Cruz? When will “the media” stop manufacturing political leaders out of shameless buffoonery?

In the last century, an alcoholic Sen. Joe McCarthy terrorized the nation by waving scraps of paper and lying about them. From that, journalists learned they had to do more than report with a straight face what reckless politicians were willing to say. Context was vital.

Now it’s all back with a vengeance, and media consumers have to sort out a “false equivalence” between sane and insane realities. Barack Obama and Rafael Edward Cruz are not polar choices in American politics any more than are global and flat-earth models in geography.

Yet the media still can’t resist colorful, even making news out of Cruz’s father telling the Texas Tea Party that the President is an “outright Marxist” who “seeks to destroy all concept of God” and urging the crowd to send him “back to Kenya.”

That could be defended as subtle exposure of the roots of Cruz nuttiness were it not surrounded by acres of taking him seriously as a major force in the GOP. “Ted Cruz extends olive branch to GOP senators,” reports Politico with a straight face about his promise not to back their opponents in primary races.

What’s needed is more reporting like a recent New Yorker piece that pairs him with Joe McCarthy and begins thus:

“When Ted Cruz lies, he appears to be praying…”

MORE.