I Read GQ’s Profile of Ted Cruz so You Don’t Have to.

by kara on September 23, 2013

Color me SHOCKED that Ted Cruz is another in the series of fake Texans/humble man of the people (let’s stop blaming Canada for Ted Cruz – he’s from Texas, just like W. Don’t let that horrible state dodge the blame for him just because he were born elsewhere). Come t’ find out, Ol’ Texas Ted wasn’t always so willing to mingle with the unwasheds! That is because folksy humble man of the people refused to commingle with folks from the ‘LESSER IVIES’.

From the GQ profile of Cruz:

As a law student at Harvard, he refused to study with anyone who hadn’t been an undergrad at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale. Says Damon Watson, one of Cruz’s law-school roommates: “He said he didn’t want anybody from ‘minor Ivies’ like Penn or Brown.”

Yep, that’s some real Plumber-Joe Moose-Pack stuff right there! I still can’t understand is how a man who doesn’t like grads from the “lesser Ivies”, stoops to being buddies with Sarah Palin? Something doesn’t add up.

Anyone who got into Harvard Law on merit made Ted Cruz very insecure….he couldn’t actually be elite, so he decided to simulate it by ignoring an entire group of people — which makes him eminently qualified to be a Texas Republican. Don’t anybody tell Ted about the State institutions of higher learning, I’m not sure he would be able to handle the idea of edumacation for the masses.

Several fellow classmates of Ted Cruz –  who wisely asked that their names not be used –  described the collegiate Cruz with words like “abrasive,” “intense,” “strident,” “crank,” and “arrogant.” Four former classmates independently offered the word “creepy”.

Several classmates pointed to Cruz’s habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and sauntering over to the opposite end of their dorm’s hallway where the female students lived. One of the classmates said:

“I would end up fielding the [girls’] complaints: ‘Could you please keep your roommate out of our hallway?'”

When the girls complain about your creepy paisley bathrobe, there may be a problem.

Here’s a ringing endorsement of Ted from his poor freshman roommate at Princeton University:

Craig Mazin said he knew some people might be afraid to speak in the press about a senator, but added of Cruz, “We should be afraid that someone like that has power.” And the idea that his freshman roommate could someday be the leader of the free world? “I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone,” Mazin said. “I would rather pick somebody from the phone book.”

Could it possibly be, in part, related to the paisley bathrobe? More from the profile:

Cruz also angered a number of upperclassmen his freshman year when he joined in a regular poker game and quickly ran up $1,800 in debt to other students from his losses. Cruz’s spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, said Cruz acknowledges playing in the poker games, which he now considers “foolish.”

“He went to his aunt, who worked at a bank in Dallas, and borrowed $1,800 from her, which he paid in cash and promptly quit the game,” Frazier told The Daily Beast, explaining that Cruz worked two jobs and made monthly payments to his aunt for the next two years to repay the debt.

“It was my distinct impression that Ted had nothing to learn from anyone else,” said Erik Leitch, who lived in Butler College with Cruz. Leitch said he remembers Cruz as someone who wanted to argue over anything or nothing, just for the exercise of arguing. “The only point of Ted talking to you was to convince you of the rightness of his views.”

Even “fans” of Ted struggle to name a single legislative accomplishment of his, or praise anything in particular that he’s done. Lines like ”he’s smart enough to know is an entirely cynical thing to do,” and ”he’s smart enough to know better” pop up several times in the profile from Cruz sympathizers. And John McCain “f***ing hates him.”

As a legal “scholar” for W Bush, Ted was fond of sending out summaries of his accomplishments, which one coworker compared to “the cards people send about their families at Christmas, except Ted’s were only about him and were more frequent.”

In his office hangs a massive fine oil painting of Cruz during his first oral argument before the Supreme Court, a case he lost. As profiler Jason Zengerle points out, the painting features three courtroom artists drawing the same scene, so it actually has four images of Cruz. He says it’s to keep him “grounded,” which is totally what life-sized oil paintings of yourself are for.

Ted Cruz has something call his “Argument Boots”, grotesque, full-sized, black ostrich skin cowboy boots that he would not wear to the old Supreme Court, because the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist was a stickler for attire — but after John Roberts took over, he says:

“I guess I was feeling a little cheeky, because I took the opportunity to ask ‘Mr. Chief Justice, do you have any views on the appropriateness of boots as footwear at oral argument?’. . . Roberts chuckled and he said, ‘You know, Ted, if you’re representing the state of Texas, they’re not only appropriate, they’re required.’”

Oh, slog through the whole article yourself, just to get to the part about the”argument boots”, the paisley bathrobe, and his “dear friend” William Rehnquist. I’ll hold your hair back for you while you vomit. I think I’m Cruzed-out for today.

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