That Time I Owned Ted Cruz in Five Seconds at a Cocktail Party

Given Sally Yates' complete pwnage of Ted Cruz at yesterday's hearing, I feel compelled to once again share this story, which has always caused me to be mystified at the widespread praise for Cruz's alleged intellect. It's an excerpt from this Banter M article, which you can enjoy in full for a buck-ninety-nine.

I was at a Freedomworks party at CPAC 2010 in honor of Ed Morrissey, who despite being a superstar conservative blogger, is also a wonderful human being. It was thanks to Ed that I had the run of the place, and of every CPAC I ever attended, despite being a well-known liberal provocateur. Already a few drinks in, Ed introduced me to a guy he described as “a great Tea Party candidate from Texas” whose name only stuck with me because it reminded me of a TV character.

It was Ted Cruz, whom I misheard saying he was the former attorney general of Texas, when he must’ve said solicitor general. I remember wanting to slap Ed, because I had bigger prey on my mind, but I politely struck up a conversation with the guy as I scanned the rest of the place. He gave me his card, which I promptly shitcanned after we were done talking because I was convinced nobody would ever hear from him again. As we engaged in small chitchat (which included several attempts to get him to say the name of my website correctly), Ed just suddenly walks off and leaves me there with him. Resigned, I turned to Cruz and said “You’re a Tea Party guy, huh? What do you guys have against people having health insurance?”

Cruz gets that explaining-things-to-kindergartners look on his face, and launches into a rap that sounded something like this:

“Imagine if Congress were to pass a law that says fire insurance companies cannot take into account preexisting conditions, such as whether the home has already burned down in a fire.”

“If that were the law, what any rational person would do–we would both cancel our fire insurance policies because our house had not burned down, and if it did burn down, we could then buy a fire insurance policy and say: Please pay for my house.”

When he gets done, I look at him and say “Yeah, but if you don’t have fire insurance, they still come put out your fire. Nobody dies if they don’t have fire insurance.”

A pensive look comes across his face, and after a few seconds, he says “That’s a very interesting point.”

“Yeah, you think that over for awhile,” I said, shook his hand, and pretended to see someone I knew in another room. As I passed by Ed, I patted him on the shoulder and said “Good luck with that guy.”

Shows what I know. The reason I remember his fire insurance rap so well is because even after I destroyed it in two seconds with three beers in me, he was still using it three years later, during his fake filibuster. When I saw Cruz at the White House Correspondents Dinner a few years later, I reminded him of the meeting, and like the authentic soul he is, he said he remembered the meeting fondly.

As it turns out, I didn't actually misremember, exactly. Cruz was a former solicitor general, and was running for Texas AG when we met at that party. If memory serves, this party was also where I first "met" Chris Hayes, sort of. He brushed past me on his way to some other room, and I asked my friend "Was that Chris Hayes?" He said "Yeah, " and I said "What the hell is Chris Hayes doing at a Freedomworks party?" And he was like "Well, what the hell are you doing at a Freedomworks party?" Touche.