Ted Cruz: The Organ Grinder Strikes Again

Is it in poor taste for a media outlet to prey upon the family of a political candidate? You better believe it!

Sure, dragging your family members onto a stage at campaign stop after campaign stop is part of the history – even the macabre charm – of campaigning in America. Not to mention that magic moment on the Big Stage at a National Convention when you've secured a place on a National Ticket and all gather 'round. Even so, in such scenarios, it is the candidate alone who should bear the brunt of any critique.

But when you include your children as innocent, unknowing audible participants in a paid commercial; when you have the guile to have one of them utter a commentary on an opponent; when you're shameless enough to include them in a completely fabricated scenario, right down to the made-up children's book being read and enjoyed by the family at hand … then you, the candidate, open up anyone and everyone to commentary, the whining complaints of Ted Cruz, be damned.

And in case you still don't know for sure that Cruz is, indeed, the most shameless politician to ever run for president in this nation of ours … a man who would probably even lie about the origins of his own mother to get votes (oh, wait … he has done that, right?), Cruz is now invoking the Washington Post cartoon depicting the candidate as a conniving organ grinder and his children as monkeys – the cartoon which has caused such a clatter – as part of a ploy to collect $1 million in campaign cash. I guess the cartoon didn't bother poor Ted that much.

Anyhow … now you know for sure.