Gonna get real tired of that face in the next year.
The Armed Services Committee is one of the most prestigious and powerful panels in the Senate. It isn't your damn book club. If you are a prominent Republican seeking to polish their military bonafides or prove your deep understanding of the foreign policy issues of the day,
you might want to show up.
[Sen. Ted Cruz], who announced last week he’s running for president, has the committee’s worst attendance record — by far.
The Texas Republican attended just three of the panel’s 16 public hearings so far this year, according to a POLITICO review of transcripts from full committee hearings. The average committee member attended 13 of the 16 hearings, and Cruz is the only one of the panel’s 26 members with an attendance rate below 50 percent.
Three? I can see missing a few, what with the challenges of being a blowhard senator who needs to appear on camera having the loudest possible opinion on things at all hours of the day, but being on the Armed Services Committee and almost never actually showing up does not speak to a presidental-ish commitment to understanding how those Armed Services should be run or what challenges they might be facing either now or in the future. Perhaps it speaks instead to Ted Cruz being so very sure of himself and his opinions that, as with all other issues one might name, he feels that speaking to actual experts is a waste of his time. He knows what he thinks, he doesn't need to attend any committee hearings to listen to other people suggest
other things he might think instead. Ted Cruz might have very strong opinions on the military and on veterans and on Iran and Iraq and Syria and
Benghazi!, but they're apparently not strong enough to pique an interest in parking himself down in a comfy taxpayer-provided chair once or twice a week.
He's running for president, you know. He said so in front of a very large group of people who were required by their college to attend that meeting. Apparently his commitment to the job extends that far, but no further.