Wall Street Journal Edit Board Blasts 'General' Ted Cruz For His Strategy To Defund Obamacare

The conservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal blasted Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) strategy to strip funding of the Affordable Care Act through the continuing resolution to keep the government funded.

The board cast Cruz as a "general" sending his troops out to battle in a losing fight - a "charge into the fixed bayonets." It also blasted Cruz for the main problem with his strategy - calling on House Republicans to "stand firm" in the face of sure losses in the Senate.

From the editorial:

When Mr. Cruz demands that House Republicans "hold firm," he means they should keep trying to defund ObamaCare even if it results in a shutdown that President Obama will blame on Republicans. It's nice of him to volunteer House Republicans for duty. The supposedly intrepid General Cruz can view the battle from the comfort of HQ while the enlisted troops take any casualties.

The Lee-Cruz strategy, to the extent it's about more than fund-raising lists or getting face time on cable TV, seems to be that if the House holds "firm" amid a shutdown, then the public will eventually blame Mr. Obama and the Democrats, who will then fold and defund ObamaCare. Or, short of that, Democrats might agree to delay the health-care law for another year past its launch date on October 1.

Miracles happen, but it would rank as one for the ages if Mr. Obama agreed to defund his signature Presidential achievement. A year's delay would also be a victory, but Mr. Obama knows that punting the law past the 2014 election is risky if Republicans regain a Senate majority.

The WSJ edit board has been one of the leading critics of Sens. Cruz and Mike Lee (R-Utah) in a fight that has divided conservative groups.

In its editorial, the WSJ took shots at the Heritage Foundation - which, it pointed out, was an architect and proponent of "Romneycare," on which Obamacare's individual mandate is based.

"These columns opposed ObamaCare before it was known by that name, and we may have even been the first to call it by that name," the editorial reads.

"We also don't need any lectures about principle from the Heritage Foundation that promoted RomneyCare and the individual mandate that is part of ObamaCare. Or from cable TV pundits who sold Republicans on Mitt Romney despite RomneyCare."

A better strategy, the editorial board argued, would be to seek a one-year delay in the individual mandate, pointing out that President Barack Obama has already agreed to delay the so-called employer mandate. But the board noted that the only "real way" to fully repeal the law is to "win elections."