We thought he played the aftermath of the primaries — staying low and letting others contort themselves — smartly. He’s continuing on that path:

Cruz, in rare fashion, has let the fire rage without adding his own gasoline. “He’s doing a remarkable job staying quiet and letting people come to that conclusion on their own,” said Amanda Carpenter, a longtime adviser to Cruz. While those close to Cruz were confident the decision not to endorse would be the right one in the end, the quickness with which it’s panning out has been a bit of a surprise. “Trump blew his own convention. While predictable, it still boggles the mind it happened,” Carpenter said. “Trump is like a tornado. You know it’s going to be devastating when it rips through your house but the aftermath is still shocking.”

Critics suspect Cruz kept his distance from Trump based on pure political calculation, figuring it would help Cruz in the end. That’s not exactly an indictment unless one expects pols to be selfless; rather, it is a confirmation that Cruz understood Trump, the party and the country better than many of his fellow Republicans.

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Moreover, each time a group of principled, apolitical figures comes forward to bash Trump, Cruz deserves another “I told you so.” He warned, you recall, that Trump was a pathological liar driven by emotional neediness and devoid of the qualities we need in a president. (“This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. He accuses everybody on that debate stage of lying. And it’s simply a mindless yell. Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing. The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist. A narcissist at a level I don’t think this country has ever seen.”)

Most fundamentally, Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be President. He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world . . . . He is unable or unwil ling to separate truth from falsehood. He does not encourage conflicting views. He lacks self-control and acts impetuously. He cannot tolerate personal criticism. He has alarmed allies with his erratic behavior.

The latter is the view of 50 respected foreign policy experts. Their critique is as much a repudiation of Trump as it is confirmation of the assessment Cruz made.

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But — wait! Cruz might get challenged for reelection in 2018 by someone like Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.). Let’s think about that. McCaul — or someone else — is going to challenge Cruz on the basis that he spotted the train wreck and tried to warn the party and country? Whatever resentment some in the conservative base felt toward him will soon enough be replaced by grudging respect, if not admiration.

And about 2018, don’t bet on Cruz running for reelection. He might beg off at that point, surveying the Clinton presidency and deciding he would be better served by leaving the Senate (where potential adversaries such as Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) will be obliged to improve their attendance and forced to take tough votes).