His other big moment in the sun
I'm old enough to remember when Ted Cruz had a reputation as a ruthless debater and a slayer of rhetorical dragons because of his razor sharp intellect:
“I believe that Department of Justice under the Obama administration was profoundly politicized and was weaponized to go after political opponents of the president,” said Cruz. “It is an unusual thing, is it not, for the Department of Justice to be investigating a candidate for president, particularly a candidate from the opposing party of the party in power?”And who's campaign was more damaged by an investigation?
“Yes,” said Barr.
“Do we know if they investigated any other candidates running for president?” asked Cruz.
“I don’t know,” said Barr.
“Do we know if they wiretapped —” Cruz started.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Barr said, cutting off Cruz’s rhythm. “I guess they were investigating Hillary Clinton for the email.”
I'm also old enough to remember I never understood where that reputation came from, as I've never seen any evidence of it, period.
People who've never heard an actual debate know they're supposed to be impressed by debaters. And there are no bigger suckers for that than the DC press corps though it's just a pose they know they're supposed to take. Frankly, most of them are chosen for the first 1/128th of their surface, not what's in their heads. I attended a couple of formal debates, saw it was an exercise in formal posturing and figured informal discourse was more effective at finding reliable positions to stand on. I never got the impression that any of the participants or judges cared about the truth, accuracy or substance of what was being debated.
ReplyDeleteCruz was supposedly hot stuff before the Supremes as Texas Solicitor General. I think it was just because he was talking to like minded ideologues.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, I've never been that impressed with formal debate.