Donald Trump has an asshole's charm (What? You didn't know an asshole could be charming? You don't know me.), Ted Cruz is an asshole without the charm.
Cruz is a smart guy. He thinks things through. Being smart and thinking things through does not guarantee against asshole positions, it just makes you a smart asshole. Cruz alone of the Republicans thought it unwise to criticize Trump. So far that has been smart. Cruz has articulated something of a foreign policy doctrine: support autocrats to gain stability. That is one half of the duality that has always characterized and bedeviled U.S. foreign policy. Those guys may be assholes but they are our assholes. It is Russia's approach with ophthalmologist Bashar al-Assad (You can't spell Assad without "Ass!"). It was not Obama's approach to Mubarak in Egypt but it is Obama's approach to el-Sissi in Egypt.
You don't have to like those positions to recognize them as thought. They may be the positions of an asshole who thinks. At least he thinks. That's the argument (I didn't say it was a good argument.). It is faint praise.
Yet, or because, there is something about Cruz, I have heard and seen less of him than you have, I can't put my finger on it, but I just don't like him either, same as Dubya.
Dubya: It bothers me, it really bothers me that Obama has a bad personal relationship with Putin and Dubya had a good one. Bothers me that Dubya had Tony Blair and Obama has no one.
If Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz become the presidential nominees, that's a choice between unlikeables the likes of which I can't remember.
Cruz is a smart guy. He thinks things through. Being smart and thinking things through does not guarantee against asshole positions, it just makes you a smart asshole. Cruz alone of the Republicans thought it unwise to criticize Trump. So far that has been smart. Cruz has articulated something of a foreign policy doctrine: support autocrats to gain stability. That is one half of the duality that has always characterized and bedeviled U.S. foreign policy. Those guys may be assholes but they are our assholes. It is Russia's approach with ophthalmologist Bashar al-Assad (You can't spell Assad without "Ass!"). It was not Obama's approach to Mubarak in Egypt but it is Obama's approach to el-Sissi in Egypt.
You don't have to like those positions to recognize them as thought. They may be the positions of an asshole who thinks. At least he thinks. That's the argument (I didn't say it was a good argument.). It is faint praise.
Yet, or because, there is something about Cruz, I have heard and seen less of him than you have, I can't put my finger on it, but I just don't like him either, same as Dubya.
Dubya: It bothers me, it really bothers me that Obama has a bad personal relationship with Putin and Dubya had a good one. Bothers me that Dubya had Tony Blair and Obama has no one.
If Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz become the presidential nominees, that's a choice between unlikeables the likes of which I can't remember.
