In the end, Ted Cruz, America’s Greatest Patriot, will not delay the eventual Senate vote on the debt-ceiling bill, sacrificing 30 entire hours of a Ted Cruz–centric news cycle for the benefit of international financial system. As soon as Mount Rushmore reopens, the federal government will undoubtedly begin re-chiseling Abraham Lincoln in Ted Cruz’s image.

“I’ve never had any intention of delaying the timing of this vote,” Cruz told members of the press during “a lengthy statement before reporters following a Senate Republican meeting,” Politico reports. He continued: “The focus is and should be on the substance of providing real relief for the American people. This deal doesn’t do that and that’s why I intend to vote no, but there is nothing to be benefited by delaying this vote a couple of days, versus having it today.” There is nothing to be benefited by Ted Cruz’s public service, either, and yet . . .

Cruz’s solitary act of un-self-interested cooperation was not enough to assuage the concerns of the editorial board of his hometown paper, The Houston Chronicle, which actually unendorsed the senator, whom it had previously backed, in a hilarious opinion piece today. “When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November’s general election, we did so with many reservations,” the paper admitted. Then why . . . endorse him? Wait a second: meaningless, attention-generation publicity stunt intrinsically incapable of affecting the unfortunate circumstances of our present reality? Ted Cruz and the Chronicle are not so different after all.