The New Yorker discovered a past for Cruz that reminds us of a dark period in American politics, where guilt-by-association ruined many careers.
The author of the piece was actually in attendance of the speech Cruz gave to Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers group. And she wrote down his comments.
From The New Yorker:
Cruz greeted the audience jovially, but soon launched an impassioned attack on President Obama, whom he described as “the most radical” President “ever to occupy the Oval Office.” (I was covering the conference and kept the notes.)
He then went on to assert that Obama, who attended Harvard Law School four years ahead of him, “would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School.” The reason, said Cruz, was that, “There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”
While I'm sure that he believes in what he is saying, he most certainly was playing the room. The Koch brothers group, Americans for Prosperity, operates in a fantasy land. They and groups like them attack a President Obama that does not exist, which in my opinion makes it that much harder to combat.
Notice how, like Joe McCarthy sixty years ago, he didn't name names. Joe McCarthy set up hearings to find out which members of the government and the entertainment industry were members of the Communist Party. He used many dirty tricks including faked documents and doctored photographs. Senator Cruz does no know if any members of the Harvard faculty are members of the Communist Party but it doesn't matter if he does. He says he does and tries to link it to the President and that stirs the Right into a frenzy. He should really find something better to occupy his time with than trying to link the President to imagined communists.
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