On Wednesday, The New Yorker printed a piece from film critic David Denby on Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). Written about any Democrat, the piece surely would have been spiked for offensive quasi-racism. “When Ted Cruz lies, he appears to be praying,” Denby writes, before embarking upon a long and demeaning description of Cruz’s physical appearance: “
Cruz has large ears; a straight nose with a fleshy tip, which shines in camera lights when he talks to reporters; straight black hair slicked back from his forehead like flattened licorice; thin lips; a long jaw with another knob of flesh at the base, also shiny in the lights…If, as Orwell said, everyone has the face he deserves at fifty, Cruz, who is only forty-two, has got a serious head start.
Imagine a piece from a conservative suggesting that President Obama’s ears, nose, and chin are the “face he deserves.” Imagine the cries of outrage. That’s how loud the silence is from those on the left.
Denby goes on to rip Cruz for the moral sin of seeking the presidency, since his “strategy is universal aggression, aimed at everyone.” Denby then states that Cruz promises to fix “a malaise that is particularly hurting ‘single moms, Hispanics, African-Americans'” in order to expand “his support in a messianic crusade, a quest to purify and redeem the nation.” But it’s all false, says Denby – it’s a “mask of sincerity.”
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.