There was an incident last week when Senator Ted Cruz was booed off the stage by Christians for promoting Israel. Something about the report didn't sit right with me. A closer look, thanks to an article at First Things, puts a different light on it. It seems to have been a planned deception, and for all Senator Cruz's talk of being a committed Christian, makes me think of a wolf in sheep's clothing: "This week in Washington, a major conference took place on the persecution of Mideast Christians. The conference brought together Christians from around the region, including many church hierarchs. Many of the attendees had experienced Islamist persecution firsthand. The overarching theme was unity, and the overall purpose was to raise awareness about what Christians in the region are going through. On Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) addressed the gathering. Rather than focus on the plight of Christians, the subject of the conference, he decided to take the opportunity to lecture the crowd on its failure sufficiently to support Israel. After saying his purpose was to highlight the suffering of Christians, he abruptly and unaccountably segued to the story of Israel’s founding in 1948. “And, today,” he continued, “Christians have no greater ally than the Jewish state.” At this point, some in the crowd—some, not all—began to boo and tell him to “move on.” Instead, Cruz dug in, accusing the crowd of being unchristian and consumed with hatred for Jews. “If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews,” he told the crowd, “then I will not stand with you.” And he left the stage... As I say, my first thought was that Cruz had been exceptionally inept. How could he fail to anticipate that he would derail the conference by taking this line? It seems, however, that he had the episode planned. Before giving the speech, Cruz met with the editorial board of the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, which then ran an obligingly alarmist account of the upcoming event with the headline “Cruz Headlines Conference Featuring Hezbollah Supporters.” Apparently, the whole thing was a setup, a farce to make Cruz look good with his base and shore up his credibility as a pro-Israel hawk. Mollie Hemingway has the evidence over at The Federalist. People will move on from this sad episode, and the good work of the conference in raising the plight of Mideast Christians will no doubt bear fruit. But what are we to make of such a man, who hijacks an event focused on the suffering of a mostly forgotten group of people, sandbags his hosts, preens self-righteously, and deliberately provokes an ugly reaction to score political points? No doubt, Cruz and his staff will trumpet his brave conduct in standing up to bullies. In fact, what he did was humiliate the powerless, and there’s another word for that than brave." http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/09/a-sad-episode
Here is an article from the American Spectator that offers another interpretation. I was baffled by the controversy and so read quite a few articles on it trying to get a sense of what happened and why. This seemed the most balanced of the articles. Cruz and I have a mutual friend - and it seemed utterly out of character that Cruz would have pulled a purely political stunt. I did not buy it. He has great courage - and may sometimes go aggressively up the wrong alley, but he is not a shameless opportunist. It does make a difference that Cruz had read credible reports that allies of Hezbollah and Syria's Assad had played a prime role in setting this up - in part because of their continuing efforts to divide American Christians and Jews and set them against each other, the better to advance the jihadist cause. As it turns out, this was at least partially true. BUT, despite the noise of protest, people in the room said it was a much smaller contingent of boo-ers than the level of noise made it seem. So though it was infected with jihadist plants, it was a much smaller group than it seemed - and the overwhelming majority of them were there to do exactly what the conference advertised. In America, the savvy Christian or conservative MUST be aware of the jihadist constant efforts to infiltrate innocuous and genuinely legitimate organizations as part of their "taqiyya" program, a program of active deception for just that purpose. It has had far more success than any of us here would like. Most of the "Middle Eastern Studies" programs at our major universities are almost entirely funded by Saudi Arabian interests - and an entire generation of American students has been given a taqqiya version of Middle Eastern history. So it is always good to check when you hear such reports. I suspect that because of it, the jihadi elements will have to scurry away, like cockroaches, and the organization will be better able to proceed along the paths they intend. But it was a terribly unpleasant situation for all involved.
No offense Charlie, but I see those in politics in this era to be people of low charachter, narcistic, arrogant, deceitful, prideful and untrustworthy. Even those I could vote for are disappointing more times then not. I give little time for politicians, news reporters and the media as a whole. A waste of time they are. We have so little time left to prepare, don't waste your time with these nonsense people. Even if there is a few good ones left, they can't do a thing about the corruption and evil within our government now. It is simply to late.
I actually really like Ted Cruz. I would vote for him. I believe he is the one our Lady speaks about in LTTW. I do however remember seeing this article in Catholic New Service: Bishop criticizes senator for politicizing summit on Mideast Christians By Barb Fraze Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A Catholic bishop criticized Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for politicizing a conference of diverse political and church leaders working on behalf of Christians and other minorities in the Middle East. "When you come to a hard political stance on anything, it's going to cause a flare-up, and that's what happened last night," Maronite Bishop Gregory J. Mansour of Brooklyn, New York, told Catholic News ServiceSept. 11. A cross is carried to the altar during an ecumenical prayer service during the In Defense of Christians summit in Washington. Christian patriarchs from the Middle East, along with lawmakers and international human rights activists, attended the three-day gathering on the persecution of Middle Eastern minorities. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn) Cruz was a keynote speaker at the gala solidarity dinner at the inaugural summit of In Defense of Christians, a new organization with the aim of shaping policy and heightening awareness of Christians in the Middle East. The conference brought together more than 500 politicians, church leaders -- including Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs flown in from the Middle East -- and Christians in the diaspora. The patriarchs emphasized that their differences did not preclude unity on behalf of all minorities in the Middle East. Cruz, touted as a potential Republican candidate for president in 2016, left the stage after he was booed for saying that Christians have no better ally than Israel. In a statement posted on his website, Cruz said: "After just a few minutes, I had no choice. I told them that if you will not stand with Israel, if you will not stand with the Jews, then I will not stand with you. And then I walked off the stage." Bishop Mansour said he felt Cruz "had a litmus test for us: If we don't stand with Israel, then he won't stand with us. Well, that's not an approach that is viable for a Christian. "Christians don't ally themselves to any state," said Bishop Mansour. "We are not allied to the state -- to the United States or to Iraq, or to Syria. Christians must be free to engage their society, to build up what is beautiful in it, and to critique what is not." Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen, distinguished professor of ethics and global development at Georgetown University, attended the conference but was not at the gala. In a blog for ncronline.org, scheduled for publication Sept. 15, Father Christiansen contrasted the unanimity of the patriarchs' message on Christians with Cruz's remarks, which he called "divisive." "Members of the audience responded that calls made by Cruz and other speakers for respect for Jews and their inclusion in a pluralist Middle East had met with wide approval," wrote Father Christiansen, who has spent years advocating for Mideast Christians in his work as a policy adviser for the U.S. bishops' conference and as editor of America magazine. "It was Cruz's assertion that Israel was an ally of Middle Eastern Christians to which they objected," he wrote. "They felt that their effort to build a coalition had been hijacked for the sake of Cruz's own political ambitions and the ultra-Zionist cause." Bishop Mansour, who said he liked Cruz personally, told CNS: "I ran after him, and I saw him, face to face, as you and I are talking. He was very upset." But he pointed out that many in the audience at the gala dinner were Palestinian Christians. "Come on, you have to talk to your audience, you have to talk to the people who are here. I felt that showed a great insensitivity on his part," said Bishop Mansour, whose comments were echoed by others in attendance. "We've been very careful, all the organizers and everybody involved," said Bishop Mansour. "The only one who was not very careful was Sen. Cruz." "He made it very clear about defense of Jews and defense of Christians, but he did not mention defense of Muslims," said Bishop Mansour. He said everyone at the conference had been "very careful to defend the best of the Muslim tradition and to condemn the worst in it." The bishop noted that 18 congressmen and senators had had talks with the Christian leaders on Capitol Hill without any kind of animosity. After Cruz left the stage, one of the event organizers chastised the crowd, and In Defense of Christians posted a statement on its website from its president, Toufic Baaklini: "As (Lebanese) Cardinal (Bechara) Rai so eloquently put it to the attendees of the In Defense of Christians' inaugural summit gala dinner: 'At every wedding, there are a few problems.' In this case, a few politically motivated opportunists chose to divide a room that for more than 48 hours sought unity in opposing the shared threat of genocide, faced not only by our Christian brothers and sisters, but our Jewish brothers and sisters and people of all other faiths and all people of good will. "Tonight's injection of politics when the focus should have been on unity and faith momentarily played into the hands of a few who do not adhere to IDC's principles. They were made no longer welcome," the statement said, without indicating whether that meant the hecklers or Cruz. The senator also posted a statement on his website: "Tonight in Washington should have been a night of unity as we came together for the inaugural event for a group that calls itself 'In Defense of Christians.' Instead, it unfortunately deteriorated into a shameful display of bigotry and hatred," the statement said. "When I spoke in strong support of Israel and the Jewish people, who are being persecuted and murdered by the same vicious terrorists who are also slaughtering Christians, many Christians in the audience applauded. But, sadly, a vocal and angry minority of attendees at the conference tried to shout down my expression of solidarity with Israel. "They cannot shout down the truth. And we should not shy away from expressing the truth, even in the face of -- especially in the face of -- ignorance and bigotry," it said.
Fatima, I don't disagree that politics as we know it is already dead and unable to do anything about the evils that face us. Shoot, I have been telling my friends in office that politics is a dead man walking since 2007...they well know my attitude. Even so, I know some decent souls still trying. I continue to get the occasional call from a friend on Capitol Hill seeking advice - and I give it. I try to live solidarity with all those I have developed affection for and respect as swimming against the tide of cynicism and corruption. Shoot, I have even run two campaigns for friends as an act of solidarity in the last four years. My last candidate and official privately consecrated his office to Our Lady of Fatima with one of my priests. He is not of low character, narcissistic, arrogant, deceitful or untrustworthy. He expects to lose his re-election bid this year but chooses to slog on in order to give people hope and a rallying point when all comes crashing down. He has stayed in a dangerous place at my behest to be that sign of hope - even when he preferred to move his family to safety and give this stuff up because he has come to believe I am fully right. Whatever we think, these people are real people, not just symbols of something. The Lord does not tell us not to bear false witness only against those we like - but not to bear false witness even against a Hitler or a Stalin. It is far too easy to make people perceived as important into a mere caricature rather than an actual person. With my family, I rarely discussed in detail what I did or who I worked with. Once, in horror, I listened to my late mother viciously rip into a person who was just a public figure to her. She did not know he was a good friend of mine. I quietly told her later - and of some of the marvelous, Christian things he constantly did while specifically staying away from the media on it. God bless her, she got my point that these are real people - and not just symbols. I have known of Ted Cruz from long before he became prominent because of our mutual friend. I watched his rise and have been pleased to see that he just does not settle for cheap publicity stunts or cynical manipulation. He received credible info that a serious contingent of the organizers were jihadi sympathizers. I thought his technique was marvelous - if they actually were there, they would show themselves if he spoke of solidarity with Israel and he would know this was not where he wanted to be. If they were not, his comments would have been unremarkable to them - and he could have continued with his keynote as planned. I thought it showed shrewd discernment. I do not expect our next national leader to come through the political process. Neither do I expect the grid of public services to continue to provide sustenance for us. But I would neither casually malign plumbers nor politicians solely because of that. I know you got your info from a normally good source. First Things has been a mainstay to me for years - though I think it has gone significantly downhill since the death of its founder, Fr. Richard Neuhaus. Their take was, I thought, unfair, unjust and completely ignored Cruz history. I took it as yet another attempt at mainstream cultural acceptance that has grown in the magazine since the death of Fr. Neuhaus. So I provide a different take on Cruz - and certainly a more complete picture of what he went into at this group. It has to carry some weight that it has turned out that Jihadi sympathizers were, indeed, a significant part of the funding and support for it. It may be that the jihadi groups would agree to stop butchering Christians if we would agree to stop complaining of their butchering of Jews. Even so, that is not acceptable to me.
I agree, Charlie. I don't even bother looking at First Things any more. It's a shame. Thank you for standing up for Ted Cruz as well. It's always good to hear two sides of a story.
I can't know Senator Cruz's motives, and I suppose it's not fair for me to make a judgment based on this episode. Still, the incident gives me the creeps, and I hear second hand that it did the same for some people who were in the room at the time.
I have no personal problem with Ted Cruz, in fact, the little I have heard of him on Fox News he seems like a good man. I simply feel the majority of politicians have sold out our country to political correctness for votes. The majority are full of greed, ego and power, and while I believe that politicians who support and vote for abortion are evil, we pray for all politicians in our family prayers every night.
