Editorial: Ted Cruz not running for president of Cuba
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http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20150511-editorial-ted-cruz-not-running-for-president-of-cuba.ece
11 May 2015
You don’t have to like Sen. Ted Cruz, or even agree with him, to find offense in a recent line of questioning he endured.
More than awkwardness, Mark Halperin offered a stunning small-mindedness as he attempted to tease out
Cruz’s Hispanic bona fides:
What Cuban food did he like growing up? Which Cuban music does he favor today?
Would he welcome fellow Sen. Bernie Sanders to the presidential race,
“and I’d like you to do it, if you would, en español”?
Halperin, co-author of the book Game Change on the 2012 presidential campaign and an annalist on MSNBC,
spoke to Cruz for a Bloomberg Politics online interview series on presidential candidates.
As you may have heard, Cruz, Texas’ junior senator, is running for president — of a country that should be above such
inappropriate behavior from a journalist.
Cruz has been clear about his Cuban heritage, even as he has spent roughly zero time pushing himself as
the “Hispanic candidate.” For the record, Cruz’s father left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas.
Ted was born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, where his father worked in the oil industry.
They and Ted’s mother, born in Delaware, moved to the Houston area, where Ted grew into a brilliant legal mind .
What Cruz has said or will say about the issues facing Americans — how he comports himself as a U.S. senator and
presidential candidate — is what matters. What doesn’t? Where he lands on arroz con frijoles or Desi Arnaz’s career.
This newspaper has had significant disagreement with Cruz’s performance in Congress, none of it remotely related
to his ethnicity. America should judge his current candidacy in similar light.
Cruz kept his cool with Halperin, who apologized Monday — 11 days after the interview first aired.
But Cruz had to wonder what gave this Beltway big shot license to even take this path. What other presidential candidate
would he question this way?
Syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette, a former member of this editorial board, was succinct:
“I will also stick to English, Señor Halperin. You crossed the line. This was bad journalism, bad form and bad manners.”
What else need be said, in any language?
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