Of course the reason that we sometimes have overly harsh sentencing laws is because of similar grandstanding by lots of other politicians. This behavior is what politicians do all the time to stand out and make a name for themselves.
So basically the article is saying that:
1. Cruz is just another grandstanding politician.
2. He is ambitious enough to walk over any of his fellow congress members to do his grandstanding.
> It is tougher on violent offenders,” Lee sputtered. “That statement is inaccurate…. We’re not letting out violent offenders. That is false.”
>Lee’s communications director, Conn Carroll, confirmed to me that Lee and his staff had no advance warning that Cruz was planning to brutally attack—and, in Lee’s view, misrepresent—his friend’s bill.
Polite words for lying.
>Another telling episode came during the 2013 government shutdown, which Cruz spearheaded, insisting that if Congress defunded Obamacare, the president might go along. As McKay Coppins reports in his new book, The Wilderness, Cruz’s own staff never actually expected the gambit to work. To Cruz’s colleagues, it was a pointless and damaging exercise, but grassroots conservative groups cheered the effort.
One more lie.
>But a Republican policy expert close to a number of top GOP operatives and donors insisted it’s not about Cruz’s style or his positions. It’s his disingenuousness—and inability to produce results. “He knows his tactics are bound to fail, but pursues them to debase his Republican colleagues under false pretenses and endear himself to the base as the only authentic conservative,” said the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he runs an organization that does not endorse candidates. But the effort doesn’t result in smaller government or the end of Obamacare—all it achieves is drawing attention to Cruz. “He is incapable of delivering anything but theater,” the expert added.
And finally what we’ve been observing from Cruz this entire primary.
BTW, Cruz will never, ever lose the Lyin’ Ted label. It just fits him far to well.