Ted Cruz Runs for President, Eh

While having been out of town, a few news stories slipped through the cracks, so it's catch-up time.  One of those is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX-Canada) announcing that he's a candidate for President.

As I wrote here a while back, the concept of Ted Cruz running for President and the Far Right supporting him is one of the most wondrous, delicious hypocritical ironies in polities that I, or I think most people, have ever come across.

The short version, by way of reminder, is that Mr. Cruz was actually, literally born in Canada, and lived there for the first four years of his life, whose father is Cuban.  There's no question about a birth certificate, it exists.  There's no hidden conspiracy, it's a fact -- well-established and acknowledged.  That’s what’s so bizarrely hilarious about conservatives making the case that he’s eligible to be president, after their having claimed for six years that Barack Obama wasn’t eligible and is an illegal, foreign-born president.

Far Right claims about Mr. Obama were always based on a false, never-substantiated, theoretic presumption that he was possibly born in Kenya -- whereas Ted Cruz was born in Canada, has a Canadian birth certificate, and lived there for his formative first four years, born to a Cuban father.  From what I've read and researched, Ted Cruz is likely eligible to run for president.  His mother was an American citizen, and this allows for her child being an American citizen, as well.  (Whether it makes him a "natural born" citizen -- which is the presidential requirement -- is a less-decided question, but precedent does appear to be the case.)  However, at its most basic, this is not only the Exact Same situation as Barack Obama, it then goes even farther what with actual, hard birth certificate evidence and first four years living in a foreign land.  Worse though for the Texas senator, up until last June, Ted Cruz was STILL a Canadian citizen!  He had dual-citizenship.  Even while sitting as a U.S. Senator.  It turns out that there’s a long process someone has to go through to renounce one's Canadian citizenship, and he never ended it.  The Canadian government announced he still had Canadian citizenship.  Mr. Cruz said at the time he “meant to” file the paperwork, but after the story became news, it still took him nine months to get around to it.

It’s just too hilarious.  Not the question of whether Ted Cruz is eligible to run for president as a "natural born" citizen, but the efforts to explain away the guttural, head-exploding hypocrisy. There are few things more fun watching conservative twist in convoluted knots trying to explain why Ted Cruz is eligible to be president, but Barack Obama isn't.

It's such insane logic that Lewis Carroll wouldn't have accepted it for Wonderland.

And the "where was he born?" issue it doesn't even take into consideration that Ted Cruz not only was born, but grew up in Canada...and until nine months ago WAS STILL CANADIAN.

So, for me, this is the most entertaining storyline of the 2016 Presidential Campaign.  It does come with a medical warning though.  Be careful when watching all the twisting and turning in explanation, because it can cause a risk of injury to you neck.