Let us now praise the mighty men over whom the current president* triumphed on his way to the vast choruses of applause that only he can hear. Let us praise these looming, quivering towers of pure Jell-O. Do you wonder why Donald Trump could beat these clowns? He could do it because he has a predator's sense for weakness in people who have even less courage of their convictions than he has. He also has a mugger's instinct for people who can easily be rolled. So he looked up and down the stage during all those debates and he realized that he could dispatch all of these lightweights with a sneer and an insult. And he was not wrong.

Let us look at the most recent examples. For one, there's Tailgunner Ted Cruz. First, candidate Trump insulted Cruz's wife to the point where she was heckled at the Republican National Convention. Then, on the morning of the Indiana primary, which really was the last chance for anyone even to temporarily derail the Trump train, he accused Cruz's father of being breakfast pals in New Orleans with Lee Harvey Oswald.

Now, I suspect most people would distance themselves from a guy who slandered their wives and fathers. Ah, but most people don't still think they can be president. Most people are not looking at a vacant seat on the Supreme Court and thinking, "Me some too, yes?" Most people, thank the living almighty god, are not Ted Cruz.

Tiger Beat On The Potomac went off in vain pursuit of Cruz's principles.

In Cruz's case, the new approach means, among other things, embracing the role of enforcer for the Trump administration. He would seem an unconvincing collaborator for the 45th president, who infamously spread unflattering photos of his Cruz's wife and later linked his father to the JFK assassination, neither of which he ever apologized for. Yet somehow, associates of both men say, they've forged a genuine and unique respect for one another. And from Cruz's perspective, his cooperation with Trump provides a powerful witness as he seeks reintegration with the Republican elite: If he can forgive and forget, why can't they?

And then there's Young Marco Rubio, whom Trump humiliated even more gruesomely than he did practically anyone else. (He even subcontracted some of the job to Chris Christie who, like so many Trump sub-contractors, has failed to get reimbursed in any way.) When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined Rex Tillerson, the administration's nominee to be Secretary of State, Rubio really went to town.

RUBIO: Are you aware people who oppose Vladimir Putin wind up dead all over the world -- poisoned, shot in the back of the head? Do you think that's coincidental or possible or likely they were part of an effort to murder his political opponents?

TILLERSON: People who speak for freedom and regimes that are oppressive are often threatened. These things happen to them. In terms of assigning specific responsibilities, I would have to have more information. As I indicated I feel it is important in advising the president if confirmed that I deal with facts, I deal with sufficient information which means having access to all information. I'm sure there is a large body of information I have never seen that's in the classified realm. I look forward, if confirmed to becoming fully informed.

RUBIO: None of this is classified. These people are dead.

Wow, people thought. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Of course, after some very public pondering, and after some presumably interesting phone calls from the Texas oil money he'll need if he wants to run for president again, Young Marco reached the close-in frontiers of his political integrity and cast the deciding vote to report Tillerson's nomination out of the committee favorably. From USA Today:

"Given the extraordinary amount of uncertainty and anxiety that exists both here at home and abroad about the direction of our nation's foreign policy, I concluded that it would not be good for our country to unnecessarily delay or create unwarranted political controversy over this particular nomination."

Giving Young Marco cover in this extraordinary profile in scarpering were veteran mavericks John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Substantive Republican opposition to this particular president remains a mirage.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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