In what was no doubt a rare moment for all involved, Huffington Post editorial director Howard Fineman noted on MSNBC’s “Hardball w/ Chris Matthews” that Harvard Law School professors were “in awe” of Texas Republican Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s intellect.

“At Harvard Law School, he was — the professors were in awe of his intellect,” Fineman noted. “Even if they disagreed with him, which they did vehemently, these people knew that — this guy was trained under the Federalist Society second-generation Republican wave. In other words, not the Reagan years, but these years.” (RELATED: Washington Post Wonders If Ted Cruz Is Eligible To Be President)

The rare complement from the dedicated liberal came in the midst of a fourteen-minute Cruz bashfest led by host Chris Matthews. Fineman himself wrote an editorial earlier in the day mocking Cruz as “anti-abortion, a global-warming mega-skeptic, to the right of Likud on Israel, [and] anti-immigration to the max…”

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