Gust Blogger: Doriangrey
Dr Suess would not have hated Ted Cruz. Those asserting otherwise are not only lying assholes, they obviously did not know Theodor Geisel. Back in the 1980′s while I was working my way through college (I worked my way through college as a landscaper) I had the great privilege of having Dr Seuss as a client. For two years I met with Dr Seuss (Theodor Geisel) twice a week, every other Thursday at 7:00 am in the morning to tend his yard. He would met me at his gate in fuzzy slipper and bathrobe and accompany me to his back porch where prior to any work being done on his garden, we would first drink coffee or tea, have a English muffin and take about, well nearly anything you can imagine.
Bad news from Politico: Dr. Seuss would have hated Ted Cruz
I thought the grassroots attempt to get Cruz ceremonially expelled from an intellectual class to which he obviously doesn’t belong would be the most inane shot taken at him today, but no. No, apparently, Politico decided that Cruz reading “Green Eggs and Ham” to his kids on the Senate floor required the journo equivalent of Marshall McLuhan tapping that guy on the shoulder in “Annie Hall” to tell him he knows nothing of his work.
But yeah, for what little it’s worth, this is undoubtedly true:
“Not only would [Seuss] be offended at the misuse of ‘Green Eggs and Ham,’ but he’d be offended at almost everything that Ted Cruz stands for, which is to remove the safety net from poor people, poor and vulnerable people, he’s clearly more power hungry than he is compassionate and he’s a bully,” Dr. Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College.
“Without a doubt, if Dr. Seuss were still around today, he would be poking fun at and criticizing Ted Cruz,” Dreier said…
“‘Green Eggs and Ham’ is about trying new things and giving it a chance and being open to change, right? And here’s Ted Cruz trying to stop Obamacare, really before it gets going,” Dreier said.
Here’s the quick-and-dirty Wikipedia section on Dr. Seuss the polemicist, replete with a charming footnote about how angry he was when the pro-life movement started using the line “A person’s a person, no matter how small” from “Horton Hears a Who.” He was an FDR Democrat and wasn’t above repurposing his books for easy anti-Nixon humor. He would, almost certainly, have loathed Ted Cruz. Maybe not as much as some people in Cruz’s own party, one of whom is now going around accusing Cruz of “governmental terrorism,” but still.
Let me tell you about the man I knew as Dr Seuss. Theodor Geisel (Dr Seuss) was interested in EVERYTHING. He was fiercely patriotic, while it is true that he was considered a liberal Democrat, by today’s standards he would be considered a Conservative. Yes, things have changed that much. He may have disagreed with Ted Cruz politically, but he would have by no conceivable stretch of imagination hated him. Dr Seuss was a compassionate, caring, loving gentle man, above all, he was funny. At worst he would have though Ted Cruz to be misguided and even that is not a given.
Theodor Geisel was an environmentalist, a real environmentalist not a watermelon, Marxist Red on the inside hiding behind the green of environmentalism. His concern for the environment was genuinely for the environment, not a convenient vehicle from which to advance a Marxist political agenda. His liberal tendencies sprung not from socialism, but from a genuine concern for the welfare of his fellow human beings. Many people thought and still believe that his comments regarding the internment of the Japanese in camps here in America during WWII was some strange aberrant deviation from his liberal beliefs, it was not. Those comments came from his fiercely patriotic side.
However you see Dr Seuss, keep this in mind, Theodor Geisel was a genuinely kind and gentle man, who wanted to see the world as a better place, he knew that it was not a perfect world and that sometimes living in a imperfect world meant that very hard things had to be done. Like Ronald Reagan, Theodor Geisel saw America as that shining city atop a hill, the true great hope for the entire world. He may have disagreed with Ted Cruz on how best to ensure that that beacon of hope continue to shine brightly throughout the long night, but he most definitely would not have hated Ted Cruz, From my own personal experience with Dr Seuss, I do not believe that it was even possible for him to hate anyone.
(Cross Posted @ The Wilderness of Mirrors)
