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Offline sinkspur

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Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« on: December 15, 2015, 12:15:18 am »
Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders Are Suspicious of Ted Cruz

 by TIM ALBERTA & ELIANA JOHNSON   

December 14, 2015 4:00 AM

 An influential chorus within the Republican establishment is raising questions about whether Ted Cruz can be trusted on foreign policy. Among this crowd, Cruz’s use of the term “neocon” was seen as the latest evidence of his willingness to elevate politics over principle on matters of national security. By the end of George W. Bush’s second term in office, the term “neoconservative,” once widely used to describe the hawkish foreign-policy views held by several of the president’s most senior advisers, had become radioactive. As critics began using it to describe a cadre of like-minded Jews who had allegedly hijacked American foreign policy and driven the U.S. to war in Iraq, it took on a conspiratorial tinge. 

So when Ted Cruz, on the campaign trail in Iowa and again in an interview with Bloomberg News, recently pointed the finger at “neocons” in an attempt to defend his own understanding of American interests abroad, the response among some conservative foreign-policy experts — many of whom the term has been used to disparage — was of shock, anger, and dismay. “He knows that the term in the usual far-left and far-right parlance means warmonger, if not warmongering Jewish advisers, so it is not something he should’ve done,” says Elliott Abrams, a former Bush administration National Security Council official and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s an epithet. It’s always used pejoratively. And the main thing I resent about it is, it’s a label, it’s a way of avoiding arguments,” says Eliot Cohen, a Bush administration State Department official and a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

 Another former Bush administration Defense Department official says simply, “It was a dog whistle.”

 The kerfuffle reflects deeper concerns among a core group of Republican intellectuals who favor a more active American foreign policy. They have occupied senior positions in and outside of government since the Reagan era; in essence, they constitute the heart of the conservative foreign-policy establishment. The subject of those concerns: Cruz’s stances on issues from the National Security Agency’s collection of metadata to the U.S.’s intervention in the Syrian civil war, as well as his approach to his duties on the Armed Services Committee, where he has been conspicuously absent from several public hearings.

Cruz is a master of triangulation and, since his arrival in the Senate, has said repeatedly that his views fall somewhere between those of John McCain on one end of the foreign-policy spectrum and Rand Paul on the other. At least rhetorically, Marco Rubio has replaced McCain now that Rubio and Cruz are competing for the Republican nomination. The perception of Republicans, Cruz said in Iowa late last month, is that either they “want to retreat from the world and be isolationist and leave everyone alone, or we’ve got to be these crazy neo-con invade-every-country-on-earth and send our kids to die in the Middle East.” Days later, he told Bloomberg, “The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. If the Obama administration and the Washington neo-cons succeed in toppling [Bashar al-] Assad, Syria will be handed over to radical Islamic terrorists. ISIS will rule Syria.”

 Asked to respond to criticisms specifically of his using the term neocon, Cruz’s communications adviser, Catherine Frazier, says in an e-mail, “Ted Cruz will never hesitate to tell the truth. Whether others like it or not.” All of this comes as Cruz is gaining momentum in the presidential race and trying to shore up his national-security credentials. He has been increasingly at odds with Rubio, who has become one of the GOP’s leading advocates for a muscular foreign policy and who is now trying to undermine Cruz’s credibility on the issue. The Rubio campaign continues to send a stream of e-mails pounding Cruz for his opposition to the NSA’s metadata program and to intervening in the Syrian civil war.

Cruz’s deliberate and repeated use of “neocon” gave fresh ammunition to many Republican hawks, as well as to his GOP rivals, who have long doubted his sincerity on matters of international affairs.” You don’t accuse someone of being a neocon if you see yourself as a Reagan conservative on national security,” former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum said in an interview. “And he’s not. The Republican party thanks to Ron and Rand Paul have brought in different elements into the party, and I think Ted’s comfortable in those elements.”

Or at least he used to be. Now that the rise of ISIS has made Americans, and Republican voters in particular, more hawkish, Cruz has shifted his stances and rhetoric accordingly. At least, that’s the view of some of his conservative critics. “Cruz’s problem is that he tends to look like he wants to tap into whatever’s popular at the moment,” says Gary Schmitt, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former staff director for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Now he’s kind of trapped because he thought the winds were blowing one way, and he’s got to live with the statements he’s made a couple of years ago.”

Indeed, public sentiment has swung sharply on the matter of American engagement abroad. In December 2013, two years after President Obama celebrated the removal of the last American ground troops from Iraq, and as Rand Paul emerged as a Republican superstar – Time would later feature him on its cover as “The Most Interesting Man in Politics” — the Pew Research Center conducted its quadrennial survey on “America’s Place in the World.” Fifty-two percent of respondents said the U.S. “should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own,” while 38 percent disagreed. It was, Pew said, “the most lopsided balance in favor of the U.S. ‘minding its own business’ in the nearly 50-year history of the measure.”

‘Cruz’s problem is that he tends to look like he wants to tap into whatever’s popular at the moment.’ – Gary Schmitt But in August 2014, as ISIS emerged as an Islamist wrecking ball and images of public beheadings dominated the nightly newscasts, Pew found that 54 percent approved of a U.S. military campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, while just 31 percent disapproved. In July of this year, nearly a year later, Pew announced that the gap had grown further, with 63 percent in favor and 26 percent opposed. Just this month, a CNN/ORC poll found for the first time a majority of Americans, 53 percent, willing to send U.S. ground troops to the Middle East, with 45 percent opposed. (That’s a 30-point swing since September 2014, when 38 percent were in favor and 60 percent opposed.)

Positioning himself between rivals Rand Paul and Marco Rubio on the national-security spectrum has given Cruz wiggle room to modulate his approach based on changing circumstances. It has also allowed him to claim kinship with various factions of the Republican electorate, including the “liberty” activists he’s courted in Iowa and New Hampshire. But such support, it has become clear, won’t include the party’s more interventionist foreign-policy thinkers. “I think he’s basically picking foreign-policy positions not based on strategic necessity or internal coherence but basically designed for political advantage,” says Max Boot, the military historian and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who is advising Marco Rubio. “I just don’t think Senator Cruz’s positions add up to a coherent foreign policy. What they add up to are convenient sound bites.”

 Cruz angered his critics again on Thursday when, in an address at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., he once more portrayed himself as a sane middle ground between the isolationists who say America has no role abroad and the warmongers who want to topple every dictator and pursue what Cruz has called “democratic utopias.” The speech was particularly curious, Boot says, because it was framed as an ode to Ronald Reagan and his U.N. ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick. “He trashes neocons and democracy promotion, but then he champions Ronald Reagan and Jeane Kirkpatrick,” Boot says of Cruz. “And of course Jeane Kirkpatrick was one of the original neocons, and Ronald Reagan made democracy promotion a key part of his foreign policy.” But James Carafano, the Heritage vice president who introduced Cruz on Thursday, defended the speech — and Cruz’s triangulation between Paul and Rubio — because, he says, “there has to be a reframing of the conversation” about Republicans’ approach to national security. “Four years ago it was between isolationism and interventionism, and that was the kind of caricature of our foreign policy that evolved in the post-Iraq world,” says Carafano, who has advised all three freshman senators. (He agreed, however, that Cruz should not say “neocon” — a phrase used often by Paul, to conservatives’ chagrin — because it “has been taken over by the Left, and it’s everything we don’t like about foreign policy. It’s become a pejorative. You wind up insulting half the people you don’t mean to insult.”)

Some of Cruz’s critics have also noted his lax approach to his duties on the Armed Services Committee, where the former Bush administration Defense Department official calls him “a no-show.” “He just hasn’t attended hearings very often,” he says. “He’s done some pretty high-profile things, getting into the filibuster with Rand Paul on the drone strike and taking the position he did on the NSA stuff, but he hasn’t really mastered any set of issues; he’s gone after whatever the headline of the moment was.” In April, Politico reported that Cruz had attended just 17 of the committee’s 50 public hearings, referring to him as the senator who was “heard but not seen.” (Attendance has also been a nagging issue for Rubio, who serves on the Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees.) One of the strategic premises of Cruz’s campaign is his ability to consolidate the Right of the Republican party by not allowing anybody to get to his right. On national security, this is tricky: The party’s right flank can be hawkish or dovish depending on the moment. That’s in part what Cruz is grappling with now.

 Former senator Jim Talent, a foreign-policy adviser to Mitt Romney in 2012 and to Scott Walker this year, says Cruz “doesn’t have much of a history with these issues” and therefore thinks Republicans should cut him slack on perceived vacillating. “It’s natural for someone to sound more hawkish and more security-conscious” at a time like this, Talent says. “I think it’s a natural evolution in response to the circumstances.” Others aren’t so sure. Schmitt, who has advised Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Ben Carson, says Cruz’s constant search for a middle ground “instead of having a solid view of his own” is concerning. “I think the fact that his positions are moving targets lends itself to people doubting whether they can trust him,” Schmitt says. “And that’s a problem.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428452/ted-cruz-foreign-policy-gop-leaders-suspicious?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=566f51b004d3015769e21000&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
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Offline sinkspur

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2015, 12:16:35 am »
Cruz is as much of a shape-shifter on foreign policy as Trump is.
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Offline jmyrlefuller

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2015, 01:21:04 am »
Cruz is as much of a shape-shifter on foreign policy as Trump is.
The difference is that Trump is a shape-shifter on just about everything.
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Offline sinkspur

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2015, 01:36:56 am »
Somebody needs to take Ted aside and tell him that the term "neocon" is a Jewish slur. That's how it's intended by libertarians and liberals and even by some paleo Republicans.

I cringe when I hear it.  I have to believe he intends to use it when he does, which is a problem.
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Offline Carling

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2015, 02:11:56 am »
Was Norm Podhoretz insulting himself when he frequently labeled himself a Neoconservative in the early '80s?

What a silly article.  Watching so-called conservative posters here whine about Cruz being a big meanie for saying "neocon" is highly entertaining, though.  One of them even claims to know that Cruz used it to insult Jews.  Talk about comedy gold!
« Last Edit: December 15, 2015, 02:18:40 am by Carling »
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Offline EdinVA

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2015, 02:17:17 am »
"GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders"   :silly:   That's a joke right?  I get it now...
More like foreign policy sheep

Offline sinkspur

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2015, 02:20:07 am »
Was Norm Podhoretz insulting himself when he frequently labeled himself a Neoconservative in the early '80s?

What a silly article.  Watching so-called conservative posters here whine about Cruz being a big meanie for saying "neocon" is highly entertaining, though.  One gold them even claims to know that Cruz used it to insult Jews.  Talk about comedy gold!

Norman Podhoretz declared neoconservatism dead in 1996.

https://www.aei.org/publication/neoconservatism-a-eulogy/

Its usage now is widely understood as a dog whistle.  Cruz knows that.  If he doesn't, somebody should inform him.



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Offline sinkspur

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2015, 02:21:36 am »
"GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders"   :silly:   That's a joke right?  I get it now...
More like foreign policy sheep

Since Cruz refuses to take a firm position on foreign policy issues, who's the sheep, exactly?
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Offline Carling

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #8 on: December 15, 2015, 02:23:19 am »
Norman Podhoretz declared neoconservatism dead in 1996.

https://www.aei.org/publication/neoconservatism-a-eulogy/

Its usage now is widely understood as a dog whistle.  Cruz knows that.  If he doesn't, somebody should inform him.

Again, was he slurring himself?   How about your thoughts on federal tax credits for privately-funded new construction projects?  I still find it funny that you GOPe regressives are resorting to such insignificant attacks on Cruz, Trump, and Carson in the exact same whiny manner as liberals, even using the same talking points at times.

Your time is over.  Sorry, but  millions younger GOP voters such as myself and my friends are sick and tired of being lied to at this point.  You had your shot, and you all failed your country.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2015, 02:26:50 am by Carling »
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Offline sinkspur

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2015, 02:30:16 am »
Again, was he slurring himself?   How about your thoughts on federal tax credits for privately-funded new construction projects?  I still find it funny that you GOPe regressives are resorting to such insignificant attacks on Cruz, Trump, and Carson in the exact same whiny manner as liberals, even using the same talking points at times.

Your time is over.  Sorry, but  millions younger GOP voters such as myself and my friends are sick and tired of being lied to at this point.  You had your shot, and you all failed your country.

The problem is, you snot-nosers don't vote.  We seniors do. 

I'm happy about Cruz relative to Trump.  I won't vote for either in the primary, but the best thing that could happen to the Republican party is for Ted Cruz to take out Trump. 

Ben Carson is done. He's finished in this election.  I'm not sure he wasn't using a supposed campaign as a vehicle to sell his book.
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Offline Right_in_Virginia

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #10 on: December 15, 2015, 02:53:30 am »
  Sorry, but  millions younger GOP voters such as myself and my friends are sick and tired of being lied to at this point.  You had your shot, and you all failed your country. 

This is a little off topic, but what are the top two issues for you and your friends going into this election?

Thanks.

Offline Carling

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2015, 03:10:03 am »
This is a little off topic, but what are the top two issues for you and your friends going into this election?

Thanks.

Speaking only for myself, national security and breaking up the DC one-party system.

The latter is universal across the board for those whom with I talk politics.
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Offline sinkspur

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #12 on: December 15, 2015, 03:21:28 am »
Pardon the curiousity, but what do tax credits have to do with Cruz'es foreign policy views?

Nothing. But you'll learn soon enough that certain posters drag issues from thread to thread.
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Offline Right_in_Virginia

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #13 on: December 15, 2015, 03:26:56 am »
Speaking only for myself, national security and breaking up the DC one-party system.

The latter is universal across the board for those whom with I talk politics.

This is terrific news.  Thanks.

Offline Carling

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #14 on: December 15, 2015, 03:35:08 am »
Nothing. But you'll learn soon enough that certain posters drag issues from thread to thread.

Yet you still are too cowardly to answer the question that was posed to you after you bashed Trump for taking advantage of a $40m federal tax credit while putting up $200m of his own money to rebuild a run-down historic building.

Have you ever created even a single job, let alone the hundreds that a project like that employs?
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Offline jmyrlefuller

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #15 on: December 15, 2015, 11:53:23 am »
Ben Carson is done. He's finished in this election.  I'm not sure he wasn't using a supposed campaign as a vehicle to sell his book.
On that front, it's actually documented that he is. There was even talk that he might have to suspend his campaign to promote the book.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/15/politics/ben-carson-campaign-not-suspended/
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Offline aligncare

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #16 on: December 15, 2015, 02:00:54 pm »
Nothing. But you'll learn soon enough that certain posters drag issues from thread to thread.

 :silly: you mean like dragging Trump hatred from thread to thread and topic to topic?

If TBR software had word tracking, your use of the T word would be off the meter. Talk about obsession.

Offline GAJohnnie

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #17 on: December 15, 2015, 02:04:02 pm »
 
:silly: you mean like dragging Trump hatred from thread to thread and topic to topic?

If TBR software had word tracking, your use of the T word would be off the meter. Talk about obsession.

 :thud:

Offline libertybele

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Re: Many GOP Foreign-Policy Leaders are Suspicious of Ted Cruz
« Reply #18 on: December 15, 2015, 02:47:21 pm »
Speaking only for myself, national security and breaking up the DC one-party system.

The latter is universal across the board for those whom with I talk politics.

I hardly consider myself young, but I would have to agree with you on the issues; national security and destroying the Washington Cartel.

Cruz 2016!!  Reigniting the Promise of America!!!    :patriot:
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