As Bryan Preston and Stephen Kruiser noted last week, the liberal media has mounted a campaign to destroy Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).  He’s a high priority target because he goes against everything the media has said about the Tea Party, and conservatism in general.  For all the talk about the Tea Party’s anti-intellectualism, Cruz received his B.A. at Princeton University, and his Juris Doctor at Harvard University.  He also clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist.  As George Will wrote back in June of 2011,

By the time Ted Cruz was 13, he was winning speech contests sponsored by a Houston free-enterprise group that gave contestants assigned readings by Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. In his early teens he traveled around Texas and out of state giving speeches. At Princeton, he finished first in the 1992 U.S. National Debate Championship and North American Debate Championship.

 As Texas’s solicitor general from 2003 to 2008, Cruz submitted 70 briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court, and he has, so far, argued nine cases there. He favors school choice and personal investment accounts for a portion of individuals’ Social Security taxes. He supports the latter idea with a bow to the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who said such accounts enable the doorman to build wealth the way the people in the penthouse do.

He embodies the ambitious spirit that drives Americans in their quest for success.  That’s an emancipatory mindset that threatens the Democratic dependency agenda, and the narrative their allies in the liberal media are pushing daily.  The latest salvo against Cruz came from the New York Times, which went “birther” on the freshman senator.

This attack depraved could be a sign that liberals are scared of Cruz.  Why bring up Canada if you weren’t trying to disqualify him for the presidency since Hillary Clinton’s intentions are dubious at best?  Then again, it’s how the media normally acts towards conservatives.  They still need to point out -– falsely -– that being a minority and a Tea Party supporter are “mutually exclusive,” which is what Tony Lee and Stephen K. Bannon mentioned in their Breitbart post last weekend.

The Washington Post and Politico joined the times in assailing Cruz this week for similar reasons.

The Times did a thorough review of the freshman senator’s stunning seven-week run:

• leading the charge on the destruction of Chuck Hagel’s bona fides as Secretary of Defense;
• one of only three Republicans to vote against John Kerry because of his longstanding less-than-vigorous defense of U.S. national security issues;
• one of only 34 that voted against raising the debt ceiling;
• one of only 22 who voted against the Violence Against Women Act;
• one of only 36 who voted against the pork-ladened Hurricane Sandy financial aid package;
• one of only 19 who voted against arming the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Cairo;
• called out Rahm Emanuel;
• confronted Chuck Schumer on national TV;
• enraged Senators Boxer and McCaskill enough for them to label him as a “McCarthyite”

That, ladies and gentleman, is how you fight.

Jonathan Weisman, the author of the piece, brings out all the old adages about “taking confrontational Tea Party sensibilities to new heights- — or lows — before rolling out Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for the obligatory beat-down of conservatives. The Times also quotes McCain’s sidekick, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has to watch his right flank because he faces a potential primary in 2014, who tells the publication some of Cruz’s comments regarding Hagel were “out of bounds.”

In what is known as a “tell” in the media parlor game, Weissman and the Times commit an unforgivable error by referring to Cruz as “Canadian-born” without mentioning he was born to a mother who was  a U.S. citizen, which most likely makes Cruz “natural born” and eligible to run for the nation’s highest office. Yes, just when the Texan shows some “muzzle velocity” toward 2016, the Times goes birther.

They also mentioned the NYT’s Frank Bruni, who called Cruz a “nasty newcomer,” who will bring “Republicans nothing but grief.”

Bannon and Lee added:

This is the same Bruni who, in a bizarre column last week he compared politicians to imagined colognes, accused Cruz of “haranguing” nominees and having an “aggrieved voice and censorious visage.” As for Cruz’s cologne, Bruni felt it should be “Cruz Control,” which he said was “showy” and “tailor-made for preening, with a top note of sandalwood, a middle note of tonka bean and a base of self-righteousness.”

[...]

…the Canadian-born-to-a-US-citizen junior senator from Texas is making all the right enemies in an era when Republicans come to Washington and seek to immediately kowtow to the mainstream media and “courtly” establishment Republicans loathed by the conservative base and those living outside Washington, D.C.’s “boomtown.”

As Cruz has indicated in past interviews, he is doing something right by finding enemies at the New York Times and the Washington Post less than two months after coming to Washington, D.C. And this should delight the conservative movement that always fears its elected officials will come to Washington to change it and instead get changed by it.

If Senators Boxer and McCaskill are calling you “McCarthyite,” you’re doing something right.

Originally posted on PJ Tatler.