Andrea Mitchell Suggests that President Obama Might Need to Negotiate with Senator Ted Cruz to end this impasse
But U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D - N.Y.) thinks that people should know that “Ted Cruz is Not the U.S. Government” and that “We can’t let Senator Cruz have veto power over government programs”
Several cowardly Republican Senators tell anonymous tales out of school about GOP Senators' confrontation of Cruz at behind closed doors meeting --- where many of Cruz' GOP Senate colleagues pressed Senator Cruz for plan for a successful "end game"
Early this afternoon on her MSNBC program, Andrea Mitchell blithely made the throw away line, "Maybe, President Obama needs to negotiate with Senator Ted Cruz to end this impasse over the continuing resolution...." She made it in an intro into a segment with Chris Cillizza and Kelli O'Donnell.
Schumer's remarks were made over the last day or two, and they have been repeated as soundbites on TV and cable ever since.
According to the liberal leaning blog Politico, "[A]s the government shutdown heads into day three, a number of Republican senators privately blame the Texas freshman for contributing to the mess their party finds itself in. And now that they’re in it, they say it’s up to Cruz to help find a solution." (See "Some GOP colleagues angry with Ted Cruz" by Manu Raju, 10/2/13-10/3/13, Politico [http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ted-cruz-blasted-by-angry-gop-colleagues-government-shutdown-97753.html]). Unfortunately, there are no specific quotes attributable to any of these Republican colleagues of Senator Cruz. The reason given by Politico is that "[t]he closed-door Wednesday meetings hosted by the Senate’s conservative Steering Committee are supposed to be private, so senators interviewed for this article asked not to be named."
UPDATE & BACKFILL: ADD GEORGE CLOONEY TO THE LIST OF THOSE WHO'VE LET TED CRUZ CAPTURE THEIR IMAGINATION
ReplyDeleteOn public display at a PR lunch for his new space flick "Gravity," one of Hollywood's liberal icons, George Clooney, had to talk about the so-called government shut-down. He mentioned only two Republicans by name -- The Number Three Man in the U.S. Government, House Speaker John Boehner, and Senator Ted Cruz. Here's what Clooney said about Senator Cruz: "I always panic when people like Ted Cruz take the floor and read Green Eggs and Ham. You know? Like somehow they're Jimmy Stewart." (See "George Clooney Explains the Shutdown" by Jennifer Vineyard, 10/3/13, New York Magazine/Daily Intelligencer [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/george-clooney-shutdown-boehner-cruz-green-eggs.html]).
OMG, the currently iconic George Clooney mentioned Senator Ted Cruz as if he were on the same plane as the historically iconic actor Jimmy Stewart doing the iconic Hollywood senator, "Mister Smith..." For an actor, like Clooney, that's really letting Cruz get into your head.