Radical, But Legitimate


Jason Easely of the liberal blog politicsusa.com, notes that Senator Ted Cruz has suggested (video, below) to CNN's Candy Crowley that his office is willing to help his constituents enroll in health care under Obamacare.  While eschewing the "h word," Easely nonetheless believes the Texan is intellectually inconsistent and asks

If Obamacare is so evil, why is Sen. Cruz helping his constituents sign up for it? Cruz like all Republicans is refusing to tell people that they are now eligible to sign up for affordable health insurance, but if somebody calls his office and asks, he will be more than willing to help them out.

The answer is:  Cruz doesn't hate America.  He probably is actually patriotic, extremist though he is.  Just a week ago, I commented

... the GOP flavor of the month, in the party's effort to divert attention from comprehensive immigration reform, is the Affordable Care Act.   In June, after being threatened by Republican congressional leaders, the National Football League declined a request from the Department of Health and Human Services to join in its effort to inform Americans of provisions of health care reform, denying consumers the opportunity to learn of their options.

Blogging on July 31 in greater detail about GOP insistence on keeping Americans unaware of their health care options, I had remarked "blocking the attempt by the Obama Administration to keep American citizens informed is, well, unpatriotic."

Now to be fair (with a plethora of commas), I have to concede reluctantly that Ted Cruz, who evidently (if he is being honest) is unwilling to deceive his constituents about the Affordable Care Act, is not, well, unpatriotic.

Disturbingly, however, he is also (pardon the double negative) not ineligible to be President of the United States, though we have been having great sport with the revelation that Cruz was born in Canada and with the subsequent release of his birth certificate.   The U.S. Constitution requires the President to be "a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States."  Ted Cruz is unquestionably a citizen and also is "natural born"  under Title 8, Section 1401 of the U.S. Code, for his father became an American citizen in 1995 and his mother was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware.

Ridiculing Ted Cruz as a citizen of two nations, given ongoing insinuations by the right that Barack Obama is Muslim or foreign-born, may be satisfying given the obvious irony.   Still, criticism of a Repub presidential hopeful for wanting to abolish the IRS, repeal the ACA (which he must know is implausible), and slash the Constitution by banning all abortions past the twentieth week of pregnancy is not only more honest intellectually but will not give us false hope that he is ineligible for the Oval Office.







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