He draws strength from the attention it delivers and he has sought the hatred of others since high school (“He was not well liked,” said former high school classmate Laura Calaway). Not Cruz, whose premeditated rudeness, self-righteousness, backstabbing and name-calling have inspired a dozen recent pieces exploring the question of why Washington hates Ted Cruz ( Atlantic, New Republic, Mother Jones, New York, Vanity Fair, Vice, The Week, et al.). If waterboarded, Johnson, Nixon and Trump would confess that they prefer love to hatred. If not the first prick, what is Cruz? He’s the first American politician who strives to be despised. All would agree that Donald Trump is a wicked man, but he has his sensitive side, too, as proved by his emotional reaction to charges that he’s short-fingered. Richard Nixon could be nasty, too, but he resented the hatred his actions elicited. Lyndon Johnson, for example, famously enjoyed humiliating secretaries, senators and aides by summoning them into the bathroom for conversations while he was seated on the presidential throne. Of course, Cruz isn’t the first prick to inhabit politics. “I’ll take cyanide if he ever got the nomination.” Peter King, who isn’t exactly likable himself, recently. “I just don’t like the guy,” said former President George W. “Classless, tasteless and counterproductive,” said Rep. “Nobody likes him,” Bob Dole said in January. “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you,” Sen. This week, Complex collected some of the choice rips dealt to him by other Republicans. But Cruz has a way of producing the uncensored, blunt and ugly from his fellow party-members. Ordinarily, decorum prevents politicians from making overt comments like this-even about the members of the opposing party. But given his long-term success at extracting vitriol and bile by the barrel from those who should be his ideological comrades, we can only assume that Cruz craves the hatred and condemnation, and regards Boehner’s Lucifer comment as an endorsement. Any other politician would have winced at the characterization, especially coming from a fellow Republican.
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