Now, Trump wants them to focus obsessively on this Carsongate non-controversy. This is, to put it bluntly, one of the lamest examples of “cheating” I have ever seen. Cruz was clearly following a story generated by the media. To the extent that his campaign tweeted something that wasn’t exactly equivalent to what Jake Tapper and Dana Bash (two very respected journalists) were discussing on air, how many times have literally all of us tweeted something based on what we thought we heard on TV only to later realize that we had some particular fact wrong, or even completely misheard?

It happens all the time, to everyone, and here’s how I know. I see people – respected members of the media – tweet things all the time about “so and so said this.” And I think to myself, “That sounds like it would make an interesting story,” so I go and look on TV Eyes and lo and behold, all they got right is the general gist, and the actual words are completely different (and, inevitably, less interesting and salacious). Partly that’s exaggeration for the benefit of the story, but part of it is that it’s difficult to remember with exactitude anything that’s said in the heat of the moment. What we remember is the impression that it makes on us. And if you watch the Tapper and Bash video, you can completely see how Cruz’s staffer got the idea he did.

However, even if Cruz’s staffer had sent out the erroneous information intentionally and with malice aforethought, it would not have cracked the top 100 political dirty tricks that have been pulled just this election cycle thus far. It certainly doesn’t rise to the level of suggesting, with absolutely no basis, that Ted Cruz is not eligible to vote for President, or repeatedly lying and saying that Ted Cruz tried to hide loans that he disclosed on a different publicly available form.