Ted Cruz getting under the liberals' skin

News Busters:

That pesky Ted Cruz just won’t go away. What is wrong with him?

Welcome to the new refrain in Washington as liberal journalists like the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank are stepping up their smear campaign demonize the junior Republican senator from Texas. Milbank, long known for his acid tongue and fealty to conventional liberal opinion did his part by asking on Thursday: “Is there nobody who can tell Ted Cruz to shut up?

The complaints are all quite familiar by now:

• “He has already turned the Senate’s ancient seniority system upside down and is dominating his senior Republican colleagues.”
• “Cruz is 42, the same age Joe McCarthy was when he amassed power in the Senate with his allegations of communist infiltration. Tail-gunner Ted debuted in the Senate this year with the insinuation that Chuck Hagel, now the defense secretary, may have been on the payroll of the North Koreans. Cruz also wrote in Politico that “Hagel’s nomination has been publicly celebrated by the Iranian government.”
• “Now Cruz is turning his incendiary allegations against fellow Republicans.”

While it’s not quite true that the Iranian government literally celebrated the nomination of Hagel to become SecDef, it is quite true that his expressed skepticism toward Israel is something which that country’s opponents do love. For Milbank to be singling out Cruz as some sort of unique politician in making hyperbole is almost self-parody. You simply do not see members of the self-described mainstream media ridiculing and deriding the daily vituperations that spill from the mouth of Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. Anyone who has paid any sort of attention to the far more absurd and ridiculous babblings of Nancy Pelosi, Patty Murray, Joe Biden, or Maxine Waters would surely know Cruz is far less hyperbolic in his speech.

Milbank certainly does as well. But gaffes are quite beside the point here. The thing about Ted Cruz that irritates many squishy Republicans and enrages illiberal liberals is that he dares to react to news events in the same way that Democrats routinely do. Only Democrats are allowed to argue for their ideas based on current events. Only Democrats can use hyperbole. Only Democrats like the inexperienced former junior senator from Illinois are allowed to buck the seniority system.

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There is more.

Obama's Organizing for America group attempted to turn out a crowd at Cruz's Dallas office but they were outnumbered by Tea Party members who showed up to support him.  They fear him because he has been effective at shaping the debate on guns and immigration.