Ted Cruz is positively SICKENED by how low the liberal media is willing to go “to attack and destroy” him and everyone he holds dear, specifically with claims that he keeps trotting out his kids like trained monkeys. So to retaliate Ted Cruz has decided to…. trot out his kids like trained monkeys and beg for money.
Generally speaking, the children of politicians are and should be off limits. Going after children is nothing if not mean-spirited, hurtful, and wildly inappropriate. That rule is, for the most part, followed by most in the process and in politics. When the politician decides to use his children as props to raise money or promotes a “Hey, lookit me! Family values!!!” agenda, the equation can, does, and absolutely should change. Not that children should become targets, but when a politician trots his progeny out in the name of self-promotion and/or fundraising purposes, his actions indicate that he’s not terribly worried about his dkids’ privacy.
Ann Telnaes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist at the Washington Post, posted a political cartoon lampooning GOP Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz’ use of his family as props in a recent campaign. Telnaes didn’t fire the first shot; Sen. Cruz opened himself up when he decided to use his children in an attempt to further his political ambitions.
Classy to the bitter end, Sen. Cruz was so adamant in demonstrating that he wasn’t using his children for his own personal political gain that he sent out an email blast featuring his children in an effort to raise money off the “controversy.”
Classy. @washingtonpost makes fun of my girls. Stick w/ attacking me—Caroline & Catherine are out of your league. https://t.co/N61ys6z8w1
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 22, 2015Ted Cruz jumping all over an ultimately harmless political cartoon in the hopes of dominating a meaningless one-day news cycle is nothing if not entirely predictable, but—but!—Ted Cruz has spoken about the sanctity of political cartoons before, and wouldn’t you believe that he struck a different chord?
Back in January of this year, politicians across the partisan and global spectrum used the Charlie Hebdo attacks as a way of asserting themselves as anti-terror chest-thumpers and, often, newfound free speech advocates. Among those was Ted Cruz, who, as ex-Medium cartoonist Matt Bors points out, defended political cartoons as a vital part of democratic society.
No matter what game you’re playing or what goal you’re pursuing, you don’t get to rewrite the rules to your advantage. Cruz shouldn’t get a free pass to slather on the self-righteous outrage when Ann Telnaes posts a political cartoon- addressing his hypocrisy (NOT an attack on his children) and then turn the faux controversy into a fundraising campaign.
It’s a simple case of not having your cake and eating it, too.
Writing at the Post, Telnaes said, “There is an unspoken rule in editorial cartooning that a politician’s children are off-limits.”
“But when a politician uses his children as political props, as Ted Cruz recently did in his Christmas parody video in which his eldest daughter read (with her father’s dramatic flourish) a passage of an edited Christmas classic, then I figure they are fair game,” she added.
Her editor disagreed, which explains why Telnaes’ cartoon was pulled. The editor’s argument is that children should be off-limits, and while I can’t say I disagree with that, Cruz was the one who trotted his children out as props in the first place. If a politician uses his children in political ads, he has no claim to taking offense when a political cartoonist calls him out for it. Cruz’ hypocrisy is stunning and, even worse, sets a damned poor example for his children. They deserve better than the self-serving double standards their father traffics in.
