April 1, 2014 Another one! This is a very strange day indeed.
Ted Cruz Announces Resignation From Senate
Michael Stravato for The New York Times Senator Ted Cruz on August 20, 2013, just before he shut down the government over healthcare reform, a move he now says he "deeply regrets".
In a hastily schedule press conference for 1:00 p.m. EST today Senator Ted Cruz plans to announce his retirement from the Senate as soon as a replacement can be found via a special election. Sections of the prepared comments to precede the press conference leaked to the press indicate that the Senator not only will admit he was wrong, but will apologize directly to President Obama.
"I was wrong on my movement to shut down the federal government unless healthcare reform was defunded. This was anti-democratic and dishonest. It was immature. It was disrespectful to the people of the United States of America who had elected representatives who they knew in 2010 would get healthcare reform done. The fact that I opposed this single law was no reason to hold the entire government hostage to my demands."
Mr. Cruz admitted that the fact that over 7 million Americans signed up through the exchanges despite the active opposition and refusal to participate by 26 Republican-led states, was the final straw. "This demonstrates that support for this law is deep and strong." Notably absent from his statement is any reference to "Obamacare"; instead he now refers to the law by its name - the Affordable Care Act - or simply "healthcare reform."
Those close to the senator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mr. Cruz apparently had a "come to Jesus moment" when he realized he just could not continue to call something a "train wreck" that had benefited so many lives already. "Who am I to say that 48 million uninsured Americans should remain uninsured indefinitely just so that we can continue to make President Obama look like an ineffectual failure?" Cruz will ask. "Is it really consistent with my Christian faith to continue to fight for a status quo that kills 45,000 Americans a year, according to the best estimates of Harvard researchers?" As a Harvard law school graduate, Mr. Cruz had particular respect for the study by Harvard researchers that linked 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of health insurance while showing that 59 million Americans, 22% of all adults between 18 and 65, lack health insurance.
As Alex Seitz-Wald wrote months ago in The Washington Post, it will be much more difficult to alter or uproot the health care law now that millions have signed up and received comprehensive, affordable health insurance, often for the first time in their lives, so Cruz is ready to capitulate. In a flourish of political hyperbole to which supporters and critics of Mr. Cruz have grown accustomed, he will admit that "perhaps at no point in the history of our great American Republic has any politician been so wrong for so long as I have."
He will not only ask for the forgiveness of the American people, but of the president, and encourage his colleagues to do the same. "The game is up," his aides stated off the record. "Everyone should know now that we were complete jerks on this issue, and if they don't, they will soon. Unless we get ahead of this, offering a few sacrificial lambs like Senator Cruz, we will get crushed in the next election."
Although analysts dismiss predictions that the Republican party will go the way of the Whigs or the Know Nothings, they do see the similarities. Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina who called Cruz's shutdown plan the “dumbest idea” he’d ever heard said Republicans could still survive the backlash to the success of the Affordable Care Act if they acted quickly and with determination. "The key here is not to look weak, but we see how disastrous that whole 'stay the course' mentality was in Iraq. It cost us the Senate, the presidency, and for a time the House, not to mention the lives of thousands of Americans. Although I think Senator Cruz is being overly dramatic here - but then again, what do you expect from a guy who reads Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor? - not admitting we were horribly, terribly, unbelievably wrong is possible, if we instead just pretend we were for the plan all along. Yeah, that will be a tough sell since not a single Republican voted for the Affordable Care Act and, sure, we have said plenty of nasty things about the law and the president and how it would raise healthcare costs, cause the number of the uninsured to skyrocket, and generally end Western civilization as we know it, but my staff is looking through past transcripts of all my speeches and press releases to see if there isn't something - anything - I said in favor of the law. All Republicans should do the same."
Not all Republicans are in any mood to do so. Sarah Palin said she had nothing to apologize for. "Look, if the death panels don't scare the hell out of you, consider all the illegal immigrants who will get healthcare under the president's failed legislation. This is appeasement, just like in 1837 or 1937 or something all over again. Don't you get it - if we admit Obama is right about anything then next thing you know, we will have to give him credit for killing Osama bin Laden and rescuing the auto industry. We'll look like gosh darn assholes for keeping little kids from getting their chemotherapy. If we were wrong when we called Obamacare a failure, then the American people might think we were wrong when we called the economic stimulus a failure and cut it off prematurely. I mean Americans in these small towns make great freedom-lovers and all those decisions through all those years mean our founding fathers fought too hard to abolish slavery for us just to be enslaved to the liberal media again."
Her Facebook status indicated that she was in shock and any pictures of her with Senator Cruz had been deleted from her account. "I can't believe I fell for that stupid World War II Memorial stunt. It was Cruz's idea - I always thought it was goofy. And those old guys smelled."
The Tea Party, founded in opposition to healthcare reform and whose support helped send Senator Cruz to Washington, issued a defiant statement through its normally reserved founder and financial backer, David Koch, that they would "continue to oppose any and all efforts to make comprehensive healthcare affordable and universal. We don't care what the facts say - never have, never will. We continue to believe that healthcare reform will be a disaster. Insuring children and paying for their cancer chemotherapy only enables them and makes them dependent on a government handout. The free market is the best mechanism for allocating healthcare even if hasn't worked all that well for the past 40 years or so." When asked what should be done about the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, Mr. Koch said "deregulation and tax cuts" should work as well here as they worked in Sweden. When it was pointed out that Sweden was a socialist country with high, progressive tax rates and a heavily regulated healthcare system, Koch said he meant Switzerland then. "Whatever." 
Senator Cruz during a Speedo Meet and Greet in Texas.
To be fair to Mr. Cruz, he has always been in a tough spot. Now that he has admitted that the whole “defund or shutdown” movement was nothing but a reckless gambit for publicity, he requests that he and his family be given some privacy as he seeks repentance in Texas. When asked about his future plans, he said he will become a lobbyist for healthcare reform in his home state or perhaps work as a Navigator to help guide people to the best healthcare options for them on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
One option is off the table, however: he cannot work for the megachurch of his father, who told his supporters that he is furious with his son for "capitulating to that Kenyan communist in the White House."
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