Previous Posts:
Talkative Ted Cruz fumbles to Fauxlibuster Finish Line
Green Eggs and Sham ~ The Ted Cruz Fauxlibuster Continues
Ted Cruz Attempts to Filibuster Obamacare
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Excerpts from Washington Post Transcript of Ted Cruz's Filibuster:
That is actually the preferred outcome, to have a vote but yet to have the result be business as usual continue in Washington. It is a little bit akin to the World Wrestling Federation, wrestling matches where it is all rigged. The outcome is predetermined. They know in advance who is going to win and lose and it is all for show.
. . . It can't be done. I guarantee that all of the pundits we see going on TV and intoning in deep baritone voices: This cannot be done--if we were back in the 18th century, they would be writing messages in dark ink and sending it by carrier pigeon, saying: This cannot be done. You can't stand up to the British Army. It can't be done. It is impossible. Accept your subjugation. Accept your taxation without representation. Accept that this is impossible.
If we fast forward to the Civil War--a time of enormous pain, anguish, and bloodshed in the United States--there were a lot of voices then who said the Union cannot be saved. It cannot be done. Accept defeat. I suspect those same pundits, had they been around in the mid-19th century, would have written the same columns: This cannot be done.
If we go to the 1940s, Nazi Germany--look, we saw it in Britain. Neville Chamberlain told the British people: Accept the Nazis. Yes, they will dominate the continent of Europe, but that is not our problem. Let's appease them. Why? Because it can't be done. We cannot possibly stand against them.
In America there were voices who listened to that; I suspect the same pundits who said it couldn't be done. If this had happened in the 1940s, we would have been listening to them. Even then they would have made television. They would have gotten beyond the carrier pigeons and letters and they would have been on TV saying: You cannot defeat the Germans.
If we go to the late 1960s when a President, John F. Kennedy, told this country: We are going to send a man to the Moon--when John F. Kennedy told this country we are going to send a man to the Moon, there were a lot of people who said: It cannot be done. It is impossible.
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I will tell you the single biggest surprise in arriving to the Senate is the defeatist attitude here. I mean, we don't even talk about how to win a fight. There's no discussion. We talk about, "Hey, let's get a show vote so we can go tell our constituents we're doing something." But I promise you, Rush, if you had to sit through one Senate lunch, you'd be in therapy for a month.
~ Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, just after finishing his Filibuster, on Rush Limbaugh, Sept. 25, 2-13
I’d remind my colleagues that, in the 2012 election, Obamacare, as it’s called — and I’ll be more polite, the ACA — was a subject that was a major issue in the campaign. I campaigned all over America for two months, everywhere I could. And in every single campaign rally I said “we had to repeal and replace Obamacare.” Well, the people spoke. They spoke, much to my dismay, but they spoke and they re-elected the President of the United States. No that doesn’t mean that we give up our efforts to try to replace and repair Obamacare. But it does mean elections have consequences and those elections were clear, in a significant majority, that the majority of the American people supported the President of the US and renewed his stewardship of this country. I don’t like it, it’s not something that I wanted the outcome to be. But I think all of us should respect the outcome of elections, which reflects the will of the people.
(About the Nazi-analogy in Cruz's speech)
. . . I resoundingly reject that allegation. That allegation, in my view, does a great disservice. I do not agree with that comparison; I think it's wrong.
~ Senator John McCain, R-AZ, chastising Ted Cruz from the Senate Floor
Ted Cruz, whatever we decide he is or whatever he decides to be, he is no Winston Churchill battling Hitler any more than Snoopy was battling the Red Baron.
Just today after declaring himself the man to stand alone, he gave up the colors and voted the same way as all other 99 Senators.
~ Chris Matthews on MSNBC
You’re protecting America from this terrible Obamacare plan that, once we get a taste of [it], we’ll never want to be without. You only win if the program fails. Obamacare is your Springtime For Hitler.
~ Jon Stewart on The Daily Show
He's holding the American people hostage because he's so sure he's right and everybody else is wrong. Senator Cruz has actually advanced our cause. He has alienated some of his colleagues. He has united Democrats, and he's shown the American people that he is willing to hold them and their well being hostage unless he gets his way.
~ Senator Chuck Schumer, R-New York
You have to add to that brew that there’s a political opportunism here. He’s going to die on this hill, and then he’ll turn around and tell all of the conservatives that he was alone. That benefits him politically, even though it’s terribly narcissistic in some respects—
~ Sam Stein of Huffington Post on Morning Joe
All politicians are narcissistic, but this is just phony, this isn’t even inspiring narcissism. Churchill was a narcissist. But this is just pretend. He can be doing this in his closet and it would have the same exact effect on America.
~ Joe Scarborough of MSNBC
It was kind of nice to see John McCain come out and try to put down this analogy and this excessive rhetoric that Ted Cruz is throwing around, but I think in a lot of ways by putting Sarah Palin on the ticket, the Republican establishment, that is John McCain and John Boehner - they rode into power on the backs of his Tea Party tiger.
They've really handed over the keys to the car to these folks and now they're upset that, with gasoline provided by Rush Limbaugh and other talk radio, that they're out there connecting directly to the base of the Party.
It's quite clear that Ted Cruz is not in town to legislate. He's there to do what Sarah Palin and others want him to do - to talk about death panels, to be excessive, to bring things down. They take hostages not to get leverage, but they want to blow up the bank! They want to shoot the hostage! That's where we are with the Republican Party and we got there because people like John McCain and John Boehner made common cause with these folks.
~ David Corn on Hardball
