It’s been a political whirlwind in Washington D.C. to be sure in the past few weeks.  While some Republicans have lamented and even railed against the stand taken by Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, a closer look should have the GOP shaking the Texas and Utah Senators’ hands in gratitude.  It’s really not that hard to see, even for a backwoods construction guy like me.

When Ted Cruz made his historic stand on the chamber floor in what was characterized as a flawed strategy, he showed a bright and glaring light on the horrible travesty of ObamaCare.  The media carrion swooped in, eagerly waiting to feed on what they expected would be the rotting corpse of the stalwart Senator.  As they incessantly circled, pecked and tore at Cruz, they unwittingly gave a constant opportunity for him to speak and educate Americans on the true nature of this healthcare law; something to this point the media had worked obediently with the President to conceal.  Now in their rabid thirst to feast on Cruz’s demise, they allowed the curtain to be pulled back.  The banner achievement for this administration was truly unfurled and all could see its ineptitude on full display.

All this took was courage, the courage to stand on principle.  This has been lacking in the Republican Party for some time.  Was the strategy flawed?  Perhaps, only time will tell.  Did the Republicans take the blame for the tactics?  Yes, which is precisely my point.

We have all seen the abject failure of the roll out.  I had a friend, who once rebuilt his own transmission in his car.  When he had the car ready to show off to his friends, he rolled it out to put on a show.  After revving the engine, he let out the clutch for the obligatory smoke show.  He immediately realized that he had put reverse in the wrong sequence as the car went straight backwards, firmly planting his chest and face in the steering wheel and dashboard of the car, much to the uproarious delight of all his friends gathered around for the “big reveal”.

But imagine if one of those knee slapping, finger pointing friends had mentioned several times while the young man was putting the car together, that perhaps he was putting it back together wrong.  Imagine if that friend had said it several times and even tried to block him from putting the transmission in.  I would suspect after all the knee slapping was done at the final “reveal”, they would turn to the lone dissenting voice and say, “I guess you were right”.

Ted Cruz was a lonely easy target for scorn during his “ill-advised” filibuster.  But there is no one that has even a nominal understanding of national news that can attach the failure of HealthCare.gov or ObamaCare to Ted Cruz.  He was made too much of a whipping boy by the media.  It was too public.

And the GOP can be thankful that there was an R at the end of his name.  Oh, I know there has been the strange almost comical behavior of John McCain once again making a very public mess in his already sagging soggy Depends.  Yes, and there’s Peter King’s drunken three-legged bull in a china shop approach, but the Republicans can stand tall and, no matter what they think of Ted Cruz’s tactics, thank him for his courage in his very public charge against ObamaCare.  Thanks to that, the media will be hard pressed to blame this latest White House debacle on the Republicans.  They need to move quickly to align with the courage of Cruz and Lee before the smelly, sorry sideshow of McCain and King once again bungles another shining opportunity for Republicans.