In 2012 the Tea Party lost some of its key figures in congress. Allen West and Joe Walsh were rejected by voters. Michele Bachmann hung on by a thread, but is now so tainted by scandal that she announced her retirement shortly after the election. Folks like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump continue to be little more than comic relief.



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Consequently, the second string of the Tea Party bench has had to step up their game. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is one of those vying for the role of Grand Teabagger. His latest attempt to distinguish himself from the pack is a monumentally perverse analysis of the crisis in Syria:

“Fundamentally, actually, these two issues, you look at Syria, you look at Obamacare. They’re tied together. They’re tied together by an arrogance of this administration, that they don’t believe they’re accountable to the American people, and they are going to jam their agenda down the throats of the American people. And on both of them, the answer is the same as it was on guns; it’s the same as it is on stopping amnesty, which is the American people have to rise up and hold every elected official accountable, Democrat and Republican. Every one of us, including me.”

Syria and ObamaCare are tied together? I wonder why he didn’t also include Benghazi, the IRS, food stamps, and birth certificates. Bachmann would have. Cruz may not be up to this challenge.

The generous portion of ignorance that Cruz is serving up extends beyond the obvious delusional conflation of two completely unrelated issues. His assertion that ObamaCare was jammed down the throats of the American people is easily refuted by the fact that it was passed by a majority of the people’s representatives in both the House and the Senate, signed by the popularly elected President, and affirmed by a conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

Then Cruz escalates the craziness by attempting to shore up his argument with examples that rip his twisted logic to shreds. On the matter of guns, the American people support the President’s proposal on background checks by an unprecedented 90%. And what Cruz derisively refers to as amnesty, but which is actually a balanced approach to immigration reform, is also favored by a wide majority of Americans.

This is the pathetically low level of discourse that Republicans are engaging in with regard to the complex situation in Syria. They have instituted their typical strategy of being against anything and everything that might emerge from the White House. One faction of the GOP says that if Obama does not strike Syria, then he is weak. Simultaneously, another faction warns that such an attack would be an unconstitutional abuse of power. One side says he must strike because he drew a “red line” last year over chemical weapons. The other side says attacking for that reason would be an act of vanity. One side says he must wait for allies and the United Nations to sanction any attack. The other side says that doing so would be an abdication of our sovereignty.

There is one thing missing from every right-wing criticism: what they would do. I have yet to hear what Ted Cruz’s plan is; or John Boehner’s; or Don Rumsfeld’s; or Rush Limbaugh’s. These people have nothing but complaints and no ideas or solutions. It’s pretty much the same way they deal with health care, immigration reform, the economy, etc. They bitch relentlessly and offer nothing constructive.

For the critics in congress who think the President should not act without congressional approval, if they are so concerned why don’t they just come back to Washington and vote on it? They don’t need Obama to do that. The truth is, they are deathly afraid of actually having to go on the record because they don’t have any solutions and they don’t want to be held accountable regardless of the actions taken or the outcome.

While it may seem that there is no way that Obama can win under these circumstance, I have developed a three-point plan that I believe would satisfy all of his critics in the GOP, and on Fox News:

Fire bibles into Syria and turn Assad and the rest of the country into evangelical fans of the 700 Club. Authorize a pipeline from Damascus to New Orleans so that Syrian oil could be refined in the U.S. and sold to China. Approve an arms sales treaty with the new Syria in order to introduce more weapons into the region and create jobs in Kentucky.

Problem solved!

In one respect Cruz might actually be onto something. Syria and ObamaCare are indeed connected in that both concern agendas that Republicans wholeheartedly supported until Obama became involved. ObamaCare, complete with an individual mandate, was originally the brainchild of the uber-rightist Heritage Foundation, now headed by former Sen. Jim DeMint. And the neo-con right has long advocated military engagement with Middle East adversaries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria. So if Cruz is looking for dots to connect, I think I found them.