When the going gets tough, the tough get going, traveling pols are cut from the same cloth
By JOSH RESNEK
The recent winter storm catastrophe in Texas sent Senator Ted Cruz traveling to Cancun, Mexico with his family to get away from the freezing cold and ice storm that paralyzed the state.
Millions went without electricity, heat and drinking water as Cruz relaxed under the warm sun on the beach at the Ritz in Cancun.
Sound familiar?
When the state shut down last March – in the days before it shut down – the mayor went on a trip to Aruba, to the Ritz, knowing full well the city of Everett was shutting down. No emergency, not even a pandemic, was big enough to stop the mayor from going away.
Cruz never should have gone on a vacation to Cancun.
The mayor never should have gone on a vacation to Aruba at that time.
Cruz has apologized for making a mistake – not the mayor.
In fact, the mayor took another vacation to the Ritz in Aruba at the end of December.
This trip coincided with the highest numbers of Everett residents becoming infected from the COVID-19.
The second wave of the virus was in full bloom, peaking, straining all public resources in the city, impacting thousands lining up for food and needing medical attention following Thanksgiving and Christmas as the mayor got on the plane to fly to Aruba.
Again, the mayor never apologized.
He found some people to say he deserved a vacation. Some said: “What’s wrong with a vacation for the mayor? He deserves it.”
Many others complained he should be ashamed of himself.
When the mayor returned from Aruba after the second vacation, he headed out to Arizona, ostensibly to rest because he was tired after the second vacation.
Senator Cruz is being crucified in his home state of Texas, as well he should be. “I had second thoughts before getting on the plane,” he told the media.
Second thoughts, indeed.
Texas is a colossal mess today.
Cruz cut short his vacation.
“I made a mistake,” he told the media horde that descended upon him when he returned to Texas.
He was excoriated by the press throughout the state.
The mayor of Everett had no second thoughts about his first, second and third vacations which came at crucial moments during the pandemic’s rise.
He never says he’s made a mistake.
He’s never sorry.
At some point, that kind of behavior catches up with a mayor.
It has certainly ruined Senator Cruz’s easy life.