Senator Ted Cruz, from Alberta by way of Texas, may cause heartburn for the Teabaggers.

Image from texasmonthly.org

Last week his fellow Repo Sen. Mike Lee from Utah proposed a new bill (their 40th attempt) to repeal Obamacare, threatening a government shutdown if it’s not repealed. Today “Carnival” Cruz used pretzel logic to, somehow, blame any resulting shutdown on President Obama::

“We’ve got to stand up and make the argument and win the argument that, ‘No, that’s not true. We have voted to fund the Federal government. We want to fund the Federal government. Why is President Obama threatening to shut down the Federal government? Because he wants to force Obamacare down people’s throats.’”

Later, Cruz sabotaged his fear-mongering message by saying that a government shutdown would not be a “horrible calamity” because, hey, the same thing essentially happens every weekend. He pointed to the government shutdown of 1995 as example:

“Number one, the world didn’t end. Planes didn’t fall out of the sky, Social Security checks didn’t stop, military paychecks didn’t stop, we didn’t default on our national debt. What happened was that non-essential government services were temporarily suspended while the [continuing resolution] expired. Now, that happens every single week on the weekend. On Saturdays and Sundays, we see temporary partial government shutdowns and the world doesn’t end.”

Pretzel logic. Naturally, Cruz is now the darling of the Teabaggers. Some are suggesting he run for President.

This makes it all the more troubling that he was born in Canada.

Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta to a Canadian father (a Cuban immigrant) and an American mother. Our Constitution says that one must be a “natural-born citizen” of the US to become President.  But The Immigration and Nationality Act designates Cruz as a “national and citizen of the United States at birth,” by virtue of having an American mother.  Hmm.. does that sound familiar to anyone?

Is a “national and citizen of the United States at birth” the same as a “natural-born citizen”? Can someone not born on American soil become President? If no, then John McCain couldn’t have gone to the White House because he was born in the US Embassy in Panama. If yes, then the birthers need to STFU.

No one questions that Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita. If one reasons that Cruz is eligible to run, then naturally Obama was eligible when he ran as well. This puts the birther half of the GOP in a rather unenviable position. Since they’re already on record claiming Obama’s non-native birth disqualified him from the presidency, the only way they could ethically support a Ted Cruz presidency would be to admit to themselves that, platitudes notwithstanding, they love the Constitution only when it can be used as a weapon against liberals. – Matthew Rozsa, policymic.com