Freshman GOP Sen. Ted Cruz is being unfairly maligned, says conservative powerhouse Jim DeMint, president-elect of The Heritage Foundation. The Texan has taken heavy flak from the media for his strong conservative stances since coming to Washington.
“Imagine a new senator who . . . spoke passionately for what he believed in, and he made it clear he planned to shake up the statusquo,” DeMint, a former South Carolina senator, writes on
Politico.
“How would the media react to a senator like that? Nothing but praise for standing his ground, right? . . . Unless, of course,your name is Ted Cruz, and you have the audacity to defend the Constitution and buck inside-the-Beltway politics.”
Cruz has shown himself to be “an effective advocate for the founding principles that made our nation great: personal freedom and responsibility, local control and adherence to the law as it is written, not the way some politicians wish it was written,” DeMint says.
Cruz has received criticism for saying that Defense Secretary-nominee Chuck Hagel was too chummy with Iran and North Korea. “Why even hold confirmation hearings at all if senators are expected to lob nothing but softballs at nominees who are there merely to be rubber-stamped?” DeMint asks.
The freshman senator also has faced opposition to hardline comments about immigration. “If Cruz has ruffled feathers in Congress, that means he’s doing his job,” DeMint says.
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