Welcome To The Silly Season

Usually, the last three or four weeks before an election becomes the silly season. It is a time when you really can’t believe anything you read. There are more lies told in those three to four weeks than in the preceding six months and the following six months. Usually this occurs three to four weeks before a national election, but the current presidential campaign has not followed any of the rules that applied in the past, so I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the silly season started months ago.

The current story that reflects the silly season is the National Inquirer story about Ted Cruz having had multiple affairs. Although that is something that Donald Trump seems to admit doing himself (and voters ignore it), evidently this is an important issue for Ted Cruz. Sometimes the double standard amazes me–remember when what Bill Clinton did in his spare time was off limits?

Hot Air posted some information on the supposed scandal that may shed some light on the truth (or lack thereof) of the charge.

The article reports:

For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications, according to Republican operatives and media figures. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Politico, and ABC News—reporters at all those outlets heard some version of the Cruz-is-cheating story. None of them decided to run with rumors. Those publications’ representatives all declined to provide on-the-record comments when The Daily Beast reached out for this article.

Breitbart News, the notoriously Trump-friendly conservative outlet, was also pitched the story of Cruz’s extramarital affairs, according to a source close to the publication. That source said an operative allied with Marco Rubio—but not associated with his official campaign—showed the publication a compilation video of Cruz and a woman other than his wife coming out of the Capitol Grille restaurant and a hotel on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But the outlet opted not to report on the video, which demonstrated no direct evidence of an affair.

“We got it from a Rubio ally,” said the source. “It was too thin, so [Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matt Boyle] decided not to run it. There was no way to verify the claims.”

I have no way of proving or disproving this story. Neither does Ted Cruz. That is the reason the opposition makes charges like this. One of the women named has come forward and said that the story is not true. Ted Cruz has, of course, denied it. Unfortunately, this story is simply a further example of how nasty this presidential campaign is. This campaign is anything but presidential. It is my hope that whoever is the actual source for this story, if they are currently holding public office, will be removed from that office in disgrace. This story, unproven, is simply not appropriate in any political campaign.