Wallace: Top Republicans sending me oppo research on Cruz

Chris Wallace offered viewers a real Washington whodunit yesterday on Fox News Sunday. Wallace told viewers that Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has so angered some of his fellow Republicans with his strategy and public statements on defunding ObamaCare that “top Republicans” rushed to offer him “unsolicited research and questions” for his interview with Cruz that morning.  Panelist Karl Rove argued that Cruz’ colleagues see him as grandstanding rather than attempting to build a real united front, which has infuriated Cruz’ colleagues in the Senate as well as the House:

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“This has been one of the strangest weeks I’ve ever had in Washington,” Wallace said. “As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our featured guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats but from top Republicans, to hammer Cruz.”

“This was a strategy laid out by Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz without any consultation with their colleagues,” said Karl Rove. “With all due respect to my junior Senator from Texas, I suspect this is the first time that the end game was described to any Republican Senator. They had to tune in to listen to you to find out what Ted’s next step was in the strategy.”

“You cannot build a Congressional majority, in either party, for any kind of action, unless you are treating your colleagues with some certain amount of respect, and saying, ‘Hey, what do you think of my idea?’” Rove said. “Instead they have dictated to their colleagues through the media, and through public statements, and not consulted them about this strategy at all.”

Sarah Palin demanded that Wallace identify his sources, but that won’t happen, and it’s almost silly to ask it. Why would he burn his sources on something this nonsensical? We could take a poll of Republican officeholders on Capitol Hill to try to solve this whodunit, which we could call 279 Little GOPians, but it might take a long time to get to the point where there are none.

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Mitch McConnell’s team says make that 278:

Jesse Benton, the campaign manager for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign, told Breitbart News on Sunday that “of course not,” neither McConnell, nor anyone on his Senate staff or campaign staff, shopped any opposition research on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to any members of the media, including Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace.

“Senator Cruz is a friend and valued member of the Republican caucus,” Benton added in an email.

Perhaps McConnell might be best advised to call a team huddle at this point and get everyone settled down, if not pointed in the right direction.

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