We've got two pending nominations, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, both of whom are very prominently (moderator says "anti-us") less than ardent fans of the U.S. military.The fact that a chickenhawk like Calgary Cruz would accuse actual war heroes like Kerry and Hagel of being against America is crazy enough on its own, but the substantive argument he was trying to make was just as absurd. Cruz wasn't merely trying to impugn their patriotism, he was also trying to make the case for more military spending.
According to Cruz, what America needs now is to build up American military power just like we did during the Cold War. In Cruz's view, failing to do so would project weakness to whomever it is that we are fighting. Therefore, the fact that neither Kerry nor Hagel believe it is in America's interests to continue feeding fiscal steroids to our military industry means that they must hate America and want our enemy (or is it enemies?) to win.
Obviously, Cruz's thinking isn't alone in the GOP. It's about as common as a Republican foreign policy adviser slipping up and referring to the Soviet Union or Czechoslovakia, which is to say it's pretty damn common. It might be a theory worth debating if our "enemy" were the Soviet Union, but whatever our enemy is, it's not the USSR or anything like it.
Nonetheless, Republicans continue to insist on the sort of outdated thinking that leads their leading politicians to say offensive things like Cruz did over the weekend and stupid things like Paul Ryan did in the vice presidential debate when he claimed the sequester's defense cuts encouraged the attack in Benghazi.
There is one good thing to come out of it, though: It's nice to see that yet another guy elected by the tea party is complaining about the spending cuts that they forced into law.
(Via)
1:37 PM PT: A few minutes ago, Cruz voted against confirming Kerry as Secretary of State. At least he has the courage of his idiotic convictions, I guess.
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