Among the many silly reactions to Sen. Ted
Cruz’s mega-speech against Obamacare, the silliest one is found at
Politico. As you may recall, the Texas Republican at some point
read Green Eggs Ham from the floor of the Senate as
a way of saying hello to his young daughters.

Politico sought out some experts who assured Politico that Dr.
Seuss, a.k.a. Theodor Geisel, would have hated Ted Cruz as a matter
of principle.

“Not only would he 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,” said Dr. Peter Dreier, a
professor of politics at Occidental College….

“Ted Cruz is a Dr. Seuss
character…he is this kind of cartoon character who sort of parodies
his own behavior. You could imagine him as being in a Dr. Seuss
book without really changing much about him, he’s so outlandish,”
said Phil Nel, a Seuss scholar and professor of children’s
literature at Kansas State University.

“Seuss was a liberal Democrat and he would not have much
patience for people like Mr. Cruz,” Nel said.

So experts agree that Dr. Seuss would have thought Ted Cruz was
a d-bag, that Seuss was “a liberal Democrat” and that, in truth,
GEH is all about trying something before rejecting
it.

All true, all true. But as long as we’re using the good doctor
as a character witness, let’s not forget Seuss’s particularly nasty
contributions to the war effort during World War II. As a good
“liberal Democrat” and FDR fanboy, Seuss was particularly big on
interning
citizens of Japanese-American descent. And that he liked to
draw them with buckteeth and round glasses – just like Tojo had! –
even as he drew cartoons against other forms of racial prejudice
(read Dr.
Seuss Goes to War for more on the topic).

To his credit, Seuss apologized for engaging in racist hysteria
after the war. Horton Hears a Who is widely read as
apology for his role in stoking anti-Japanese sentiments and his
story about “the Sneetches” is taught in the Southern
Poverty Law Center’s “teaching tolerance” curriculum.

But about the only thing sillier than Ted Cruz reading to his
kids during a nearly day-long political speech is Politico’s
invocation of “experts” to slag Cruz for same.