Editorial: Resign, Senator Cruz. Your lies cost lives. The Editorial Board Jan. 8, 2021 Updated: Jan. 9, 2021 3:12 p.m.
That item said in large measure:
[...] we reserve special condemnation for the perpetrators among them who are of sound mind and considerable intellect — those who should damn well know better.
None more than U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
A brilliant and frequent advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court and a former Texas solicitor general, Cruz knew exactly what he was doing, what he was risking and who he was inciting as he stood on the Senate floor Wednesday and passionately fed the farce of election fraud even as a seething crowd of believers was being whipped up by President Donald Trump a short distance away.
Cruz, it should also be noted, knew exactly whose presidency he was defending. That of a man he called in 2016 a “narcissist,” a “pathological liar” and “utterly amoral.”
It seems a fine collar to hang around the Cruz neck. Public shaming of that individual is long overdue. He is a horse's ass. An unnecessarily provocative one.
Whether he should resign for being a horse's ass can be debated. The bottom line is he's poisoned his own ambitions for the White House, in support of none other than Donald Trump, hence showing absolutely terrible instincts and judgment.
Nailing shut the ugliest of Cruz ambitions that way, by a resignation in shame and contrition, would not be something to which many progressives would object, should Cruz heed the good editors' advice.
Just don't bet on it. Scoundrels seldom change, even when it would be best for everyone else.
BOTTOM LINE: Seeing Cruz castigated by other less provocative Texans is a solidly charming outcome. It is something which should already have happened more frequently, and with equal passion, over his shamelessly awful career.