Ted Cruz done lost his mind, challenges President Obama: ‘Insult me to my face’
The disrespect for President Obama coming out of the Republican fringes knows no bounds.
And Senator Ted Cruz is at it again.
It started when the President spoke out against those lawmakers and governors who do not want Syrian refugees in the country because they are Muslim, insisting that we only allow Christians entry.
“When individuals say that we should have a religious test and that only Christians — proven Christians — should be admitted — that’s offensive and contrary to American values,” President Obama said in Manila yesterday, calling the statements by Republicans “political posturing.” “I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric that’s been coming out of here during the course of this debate.”
Obama did not single out Cruz, who is looking for a fight, and perhaps a boost in the polls. Nonetheless, the Texas senator responded to Obama’s words with disrespect, like a petulant child: “If you want to insult me, you can do it overseas, you can do it in Turkey, you can do it in foreign countries, but I would encourage you, mister president, come back and insult me to my face,” Cruz said Wednesday on Capitol Hill, calling Obama’s remarks “utterly unfitting of a President.”
“It’s easy to toss a cheap insult when no one can respond,” the presidential hopeful added, taking the fight to the schoolyard.
Cruz himself shows he is unfit to be president. He makes light of the mass suffering of millions of Syrians, a human rights and humanitarian catastrophe. Then, wanting to become the leader of this nation, he joins others in his party in rejecting Muslims into the country, a move which Muslim civil rights groups decry as un-American. Cruz and his faux Christian colleagues squandered an opportunity to display humanity, as we enter a holiday season built around a story of a Middle Eastern family that sought refuge but was turned away.
More importantly, this latest episode is part of a long list of disrespectful statements Sen. Cruz has directed towards the president. Ted Cruz was brought to us courtesy of the Tea Party and Birther movements, those who questioned Obama’s citizenship and demanded to see his birth certificate. In 2012, his father, Rafael Cruz — a Cuban refugee who became a U.S. citizen — even expressed a desire to send Obama “back to Kenya.”
The suggestion that President Obama is not American, a foreigner, a closet Muslim terrorist and an illegitimate president — all proxies for the “n-word” — has amounted to a raw appeal to white racist and Islamophobic voters.
When Obama pushed the nuclear deal with Iran, Cruz said it would “make the Obama administration the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism.”
He once called the president “the world’s most powerful communist.” And when asked whether he thought Obama is a Christian, he said he would not speculate on the president’s faith. “His policies and this administration’s animosity to religious liberty and, in fact, antagonism to Christians has been one of the most troubling aspects of the Obama administration.”
The senator has accused the president of exploiting mass shootings such as those in Charleston and Roseburg, Oregon, “as an excuse to take away the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens,” warning in a campaign fundraising ad that “Obama is coming for your guns.” And Cruz accused President Obama of inflaming racial tensions and vilifying law enforcement, as he claimed the Black Lives Matter movement celebrates the murder of police officers.
Ted Cruz just doesn’t make any sense. He was born in Canada yet scrutinizes President Obama’s citizenship. He is the son of a Cuban asylum seeker but now is against refugees seeking asylum in America. Moreover, he is a Cuban American who appeals to the white nationalists, nativists and xenophobes in the GOP.
The senator’s hypocrisy is overwhelming, and though he should go sit down, he keeps on talking the loudest.
Follow David A. Love on Twitter @davidalove
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