[VIDEO] Cruz: I didn’t come to the Senate to get 99 new friends

An old adage (misattributed to Harry Truman by Maureen Dowd) advises newcomers to Washington that if they want to make a friend, they should buy a dog.  Ted Cruz echoes that advice in a new interview with ABC News, in which he says that his ambitions in Washington didn’t involve becoming a beloved member of the clubbiest club in the world:

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“There’s an old saying that, ‘Politics, it ain’t beanbag.’ And, you know, I’m not serving in office because I desperately needed 99 new friends in the U.S. Senate,” Cruz told ABC News’ Jon Karl in his first on-camera interview after the shutdown came to an end Wednesday night. …

And he made it clear that he thinks his Republican colleagues in the Senate are responsible for sabotaging his effort to tie funding for the government to an effort to defund or delay the health care law.

“I will say that the reason this deal, the lousy deal was reached last night, is because, unfortunately, Senate Republicans made the choice not to support House Republicans,” Cruz told ABC News. “I wish Senate Republicans had united, I tried to do everything I could to urge Senate Republicans to come together and stand with House Republicans.”

Cruz laid the blame on Senate Republicans attacking House Republicans during the shutdown:

“I think it was unfortunate that you saw multiple members of the Senate Republicans going on television attacking House conservatives, attacking the effort to defund Obamacare, saying, ‘It cannot win, It’s a fools error and we will lose, this must fail,’” Cruz said.

“That is a recipe for losing the fight, and it’s a shame.”

Via: Hot Air
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DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: SYRIA 'ONE OF THE MOST HUMILIATING EPISODES IN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY'

The National Journal's Ron Fournier says a Democratic strategist "who works closely with the White House" told him that Syria "has been one of the most humiliating episodes in presidential history."

Fournier says the Democratic operative "requested anonymity to avoid political retribution."

In the wake of Obama's address to the nation Tuesday night, other progressives have expressed frustration with his handling of the Syrian crisis. Progressive Washington Postcolumnist Dana Milbank said Obama's speech contradicted statements by Secretary of State John Kerry just 11 hours prior to the president's remarks. 

"Kerry can be forgiven for being at odds with the president," writes Milbank. "The president, in the space of his 16-minute address, was often at odds with himself... Nuance can sound a lot like a muddle."

Before the speech, progressive New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd blasted Obama's "flip-flopping, ambivalent leadership" on Syria.

"Amateur hour started when Obama dithered on Syria and failed to explain the stakes there," wrote Dowd. "It escalated last August with a slip by the methodical wordsmith about 'a red line for us'--which the president and Kerry later tried to blur as the world's red line, except the world was averting its eyes."

She added: "Obama's flip-flopping, ambivalent leadership led him to the exact place he never wanted to be: unilateral instead of unified."

Via: Breitbart

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NYT’s Maureen Dowd Compares Paul Ryan To The Taliban…

Assaults Paul Ryan in NYTimes as 'Fresh Face on a Taliban Creed'

For the third time in three columns, the New York Times's Maureen Dowd brutally assaults Paul Ryan, this time calling him "a fresh face on a Taliban creed" of He-Man Woman-Hating.

Other Republicans are trying to cover up their true identity to get elected. Even as party leaders attempted to lock the crazy uncle in the attic in Missouri, they were doing their own crazy thing down in Tampa, Fla., by reiterating language in their platform calling for a no-exceptions Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.

Paul Ryan, who teamed up with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed -- the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.

Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal couldn't have been happier, posting to his Facebook subscribers:

OK, I'm not entirely neutral here, because she is a colleague and a friend, but I thiink you should Maureen Dowd's fantastic column on Todd Akin, Paul Ryan and Republican attitudes toward women in general. It's disturbing, but spot on.

Via: Newsbusters

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