Critique on Ted Cruz blast

Jason Linkis, a political reporter for The Huffington Post, posted a commentary on his blog entitled Better Off Ted: Cruz Leaves A Bruise On Everyone's Bottom Line But His. He writes about how during the government stand-off Ted Cruz was able to raise $797,000 from individual donations.  He accuses Ted Cruz of misrepresenting the people for his own political gain and claims he would take advantage of his position in the Senate to gain future campaign funds.  He attempts to legitimize his blast on Ted Cruz by listing four negative impacts that our economy suffered during the government shutdown.  There is no question over whether or not that list is factual, it clearly is.  All are from credible sources.  The problem I have is that I get the sense that Jason is trying to blame Ted Cruz for this.

It is true that Ted Cruz acquired $797,000 during the government shutdown.  However, A number of politicians representing both sides of the aisle took multiple donations over that same time period. Furthermore, Ted Cruz is a republican senator which is currently the minority party.  It was the House republicans that posed the direct threat in delaying the shutdown.  Why wouldn't Jason Linkis single out a republican representative from there?  It is also the right of the people to donate money in support of their political figures.  The country is still very split on the major issues that our country is currently undergoing.  The majority of the people from the area Ted Cruz represents support his actions.  He is a civil servant and is simply holding true on his promises to the people that voted him into office.

Besides the fact that I very clearly disagree with Jason, my main complaint is that I just don't get it.  Half of his post seems to touch on the effect of the government shutdown, which I found very interesting, but the other half seems to be words of dislike towards Ted Cruz and his side of the argument.  Jason doesn't include either parties side of the argument nor any factual information sources about the donations Ted Cruz received. I had to do that research on my own. This is clearly a biased viewpoint, which is to be expected when reading an individuals blog. I feel that this post would inhibit someones ability to understand fully whats going on in politics today.    

Critique on Opinion Article.

In the opinion piece entitled: Obama Rewrites Debt-Limit History, authors Kevin Hasset and Abby McCloskey take a look at President Obama and the debt-ceiling.  Washington is closing in on reaching the debt-limit and Congress has yet to pass any bill to raise the ceiling.  House Republicans have conditions to be included in such a bill in order for their support.  The President claims that the behavior of the house is unacceptable and that they’re trying to extort him by threatening default.  President Obama, along with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, expressed to the media that this kind of political tactic hasn't been done before and that Congress has routinely passed a debt-ceiling increase with no strings attached.

  The authors attack the Presidents claim with two different sets of arguments.  They argue that Congress indeed has frequently and often passed debt-ceiling hikes, but the majority of those times the bill included different legislative conditions.  The next argument is that it is the Democratic Party who has used debt-ceiling limitations as leverage the most times out of the two parties.

This opinion piece was well written and I would say slightly geared towards right wingers.  Both the authors presented clear arguments and provided data to support their argument.  The article includes information on them stating Hasset is the director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.  McCloskey is also with the American Enterprise Institute where she is a program director.  What’s important to understand about this piece is that the authors aren't necessarily blaming the Democratic Party for our current governmental issues.  What they are doing is challenging the justification of finger pointing at the House Republicans.  Clearly they feel that the President is trying to essentially demonize the Republicans for doing what they've done time and time again over the past four decades.