Senator Ted Cruz, who missed his calling as a snake oil salesman, spent the last 22 hours showboating.  But as CSPAN pointed out on the screen numerous times during the long speech, it was not technically a filibuster!

“This is technically not a filibuster since Sen. Cruz is not delaying action on a bill. He must stop speaking before the Senate votes on Wednesday.”

Even the reliably Republican-leaning Politico admitted as much:

Despite his Ironman stand on the floor of the upper chamber, Cruz could not stop a Senate already in motion from eventually returning a clean continuing resolution to the House scant days before a government shutdown is scheduled to take effect on Oct. 1. Under Senate rules, the latest the upper chamber could take the first procedural vote on a House spending bill that defunds Obamacare is 1 p.m. on Wednesday — a reality Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) broadcast to the world Tuesday morning when he opened the Senate and again on Wednesday.

“This is not a filibuster. This is an agreement that he and I made that he could talk,” Reid said Wednesday.

In other words, from the beginning it was all over save for the theatrics.

The theatrics were there in a 22-hour long comedy of errors.  Honestly, I didn’t watch any of it while it was happening, but awoke this morning to some highlights – including Cruz’s complete and total misunderstanding of the meaning of the classic Dr. Seuss story Green Eggs and Ham.    After reading the book, which ends with the narrator finally tasting the concoction he had been resisting and, much to his surprise, finding he LOVED the Green Eggs and Ham, Cruz offered this (mis) understanding of what it meant, said

“You know, Green Eggs and Ham has some applicability, as curious as it might sound, to the Obamacare debate, because three and a half years ago, President Obama and Senate Democrats told the American people ‘Just try Obamacare – just try it’.   There were an awful lot of us – an awful lot of Republicans who were very, very skeptical of it and I think for good reasons, but very skeptical.  And we were told ‘Try it try it try it try it’ .  And, through unfortunately an exercise of brute political force, Obamacare became the law of the land.  But I’ll tell you the difference with Green Eggs and Ham is when Americans tried it they did not like Green Eggs and Ham and they did not like Obamacare either.”

Huh?  I mean, seriously?  For a very smart man, Ted Cruz is pretty stupid.

With all the insanity on Capitol Hill, I decided it was too long since we’d spoken with Brent Budowsky.  Now an opinion columnist for The Hill, Budowsky spent many years on the Hill as an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Bill Alexander, then as chief deputy majority whip of the House.

And Crooks and Liars’ Susie Madrak, who watched way too much of the fauxlibuster, checked in to give us her thoughts too.