The secret is out.
Unable to maintain the storied façade of Senate collegiality, Majority Leader Harry Reid reluctantly spoke a dark truth about newly minted Senator Ted Cruz. “My friend from Texas is like a schoolyard bully,”
Reid said from the Senate floor, more in sadness than in anger.
It took the most powerful man in Congress to say publicly what many nervous senators have said privately about the “
very junior senator from Texas." I have cataloged the most shocking allegations of bullying, intimidation and alpha-male unseemliness from the tumultuous first months of Senator Ted Cruz:
- Cruz bumped Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) in the hallway, pointed and said "what's that on your tie?" When Udall looked down Cruz flipped up his hand, batting him in the face. As Udall arrived at the Senate cafeteria, he noticed his lunch money was gone.
- Ted Cruz regularly sits on the hood of his Camaro in the Senate parking lot, with a toothpick in his mouth, waiting for the Senate Women's Caucus to let out.
- Every time Sen. Barbara Mikulski enters a room, Cruz slicks back hair and says, "How YOU doin'?"
