I have a new hero. Play this clip; you’ll understand. (Sorry, having trouble embedding it.) Senator Michael Bennet (D-Co) is usually a soft-spoken and undemonstrative guy, but he responded to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx) with more force than he may have shown on the floor ever before. He said all the things that I’ve wanted to say, and he told the story better than I could. Bennet started at the obvious Trump Wall nonsense but then went on to talk through the past decade or two. Bennet ranged to the so-called Freedom Caucus distortion, the corrosive Hastert rule, immigration compromise, scientific exploration, and more, all from his frustrated perspective. Eye-opening. He covered everything.
I am now, officially, a Bennet fanboy. I am in love with that man.
It starts with Sen. Cruze talking. Cruz is the most disliked Senator in this Congress (along with the last Congress and possibly anyone else this century). The clip with Sen. Cruz at his smarmy best, smug as a tick after a feast. Repudiating him is easy enough, although Bennet does it with honesty and emotion. Bennet hasn’t forgotten that in 2013, Sen. Cruz personally shut down the government. It was just a grandstanding stunt, but Cruz blew things up at a time that Colorado was in desperate need. Cruz showed he was perfectly willing to hurt people in the name of cheap political points.
But then he goes on, and it feels so good to hear someone say it all, clearly and very, very loudly.
Some smaller excerpts of Sen. Bennet’s speech got on some of the cable news programs, but that’s not enough. Listen to the whole thing: it’s incisive, accurate, and breathtakingly lucid analysis. There is no part of it where I wasn’t nodding in agreement.
He is my new hero.
Sen. Bennet’s speech needs much wider distribution. Send links to anyone you think appreciates clear thinking and plain speaking.
