Ted Cruz Bashed on NPR as Lurching As 'Far to the Right As Possible'

November 22nd, 2014 7:04 PM

NPR and Sen. Ted Cruz are natural enemies. On Friday's journalists' weekly roundup on The Diane Rehm Show, Politico reporter Alex Burns mocked Cruz for acting like a stereotypical bar bully and a man who always seeks to go "as far to the right of his party as possible." Rehm thought he sounded ridiculous.

DIANE REHM: And what about Senator Ted Cruz and what he had to say yesterday?

ALEX BURNS: Well, this is sort of a moment tailor-made for Ted Cruz, right? [Laughter.]There's nothing better for him than a moment where he can go as far to the right of his party as possible and also sort of put on the robes of Ted Cruz, constitutional scholar.

REHM And put President Obama into the role of one of the Greek philosophers, for God's sake.

BURNS Or worse. He has Obama sort of crossing the Rubicon like Caesar, right? And so this is a great, great moment for Ted Cruz -- you know, what works to Ted Cruz's advantage is that he's like the guy in the bar who always wants to start the fight, but has the friends to grab him and say, "No, no, no, buddy. Like, don't go up against that guy." Right? That he gets to show the base how tough he is, but ultimately gets restrained.

And the big question here is how restrainable is he, how restrainable is this side of the party at a moment when they feel really empowered and really angry? I think ultimately it's a tough argument that the numbers are there for that wing of the party to shut down the government, but they can certainly make things very uncomfortable for their leadership and for the president.