So I suppose Ted Cruz is toast, right? (Or should that be toasted…) In the more bored and rudderless sections of the mediasphere, an article from the Daily Mail issued a triumphant cry when they received confirmation from the Texas Senator that he had smoked pot as a young man. This was part of a roundup where nearly every Republican even suspected of considering a run for the White House was asked about their history with the evil weed. (The answers range from sheepish affirmatives to defiant denials, a few who hedge on it and at least three who refused to answer at all. And yes, we’re looking at you, Governor Christie.)

The Left, who find Ted Cruz to be perhaps the most hated figure in the political world right now, probably couldn’t wait to pounce. Wouldn’t the Tea Party have to abandon him now? They can’t have some pot smoking hippie wandering around running for the presidency, can they? (And let’s not forget… he’s from Canada. You know how they are.) So this is the end, right?

Paula Bolyard at PJ Media thinks the obituaries might be a tad premature.

You can practically hear the breathless staffer gleefully panting this into his cell phone from a dark corner of his office as he rubs his hands together, fantasizing about the (literal) lynching that will be visited upon Ted Cruz on the steps of the Capitol, courtesy of the tea party.

The anonymous aide is correct on one point. We all have skeletons.

Most people — tea party supporters included — understand that teenagers sometimes make poor decisions. But teenagers change. Most grow up and learn from their mistakes. People are usually willing to forgive youthful indiscretions when an individual shows over time that he has changed his ways and is sincere about repudiating the past behavior…

Considering that the revelations about Cruz are for something that happened some 30 years in the past and given his words of contrition about behavior he calls “foolish” and a “mistake,” this skeleton is not going to “topple” Cruz. He will not be thrown under the tea party bus and no one will care about this in a month (except for that anonymous Dem staffer who will still be trying to figure out how on earth this did not turn into the biggest scandal since Watergate).

Paula is correct, I suppose, but I would take it one step further than that. Even reading the frequent comments of conservatives here and at other sites who oppose the casual legalization of marijuana and see it as undesirable in a productive society, the vast majority just don’t see it as the end of the world, particularly when it’s in the distant past. As long as elected officials or law enforcement officers aren’t doing it while they are in place and guarding democracy, it simply doesn’t seem like the definition of a person’s character. I can imagine a number of people who won’t be doing cartwheels over the news, but it’s equally difficult to imagine that this one self-professed nugget is going to make them walk away. Obviously I don’t care, being a bit too libertarian for that to bother me one way or the other.

I did notice that the list of individuals who were contacted for this survey was notably missing one person… Hillary Clinton. She has been on the record as saying, “I didn’t do it when I was young, I’m not going to start now,” so I guess that’s all she wrote, eh? I mean, sure.. she was in a college class shortly before the summer of love with all sorts of people who did, and she was hanging out with a future husband who failed to inhale but at least tried it. But what does that mean? Why would anyone doubt her?

So now I suppose we can all move on to the next witch hunt. And if anyone has a picture of Donald Trump with a bong from the 70s, the address to contact is [email protected]