Boogerbite, 2016

Say whatever you want about Hillary Clinton, but by God she would never eat a booger on live TV. She just wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t even DREAM of doing such a thing — not just because it’s UN-Presidential but, more importantly, because it’s so UNsanitary and so UNcivilized. But that’s exactly what Ted Cruz did during last week’s Republican debate. He swallowed his own booger!

And yeah, it WAS a booger.

What else would you call it? A gummy Tic-Tac that just happened to slide out of his nose and land on his upper lip?

Cruz’s rogue booger dangled precariously from his nosehole, then traveled down to his upper lip where it got stuck. Then it lingered, looking for all the world like either a mysterious growth or snowy white mole. It really was THAT visible on camera. But then when Cruz began speaking, the booger appeared between his bottom lip and mouth. Suddenly, it was positioned so that it looked like one of his bottom teeth.

But it wasn’t a tooth.

It couldn’t have been a tooth because he swallowed it. Forget about discreetly turning away from the cameras with a fake cough and a quick wipe away. Ted Cruz actually ate his own booger. Gross but true.

I’m not the only one who saw it, either. People who watched this debate on television noticed it and started twittering about it during the live show, then talking about it afterwards. People who viewed these proceedings online, though, had a better vantage point from which to scrutinize Cruz’s gooey debacle. They were able to replay, freeze-frame, even get slow-mo closeups of Ted Cruz’s face. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t a hoax, either. It really did happen.

Before you start reproaching this writer for spending so much time on something so disgusting, check your own bias at the door. Remember, we’re talking about the Republican debate here. That means if any of the Republican candidates for President makes any embarrassing or distasteful gaffe, it will be deliberately ignored.

The Republican-owned and GOP-operated media are not going to dwell on anything negative about their favorite home team. That means if it’s really THAT objectionable, the broadcast journalists and their biased pro-GOP networks are going to act as though nothing bad, embarrassing, or questionable ever happened in the first place. And that’s exactly what they’re doing now.

Now try imagining what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had done what Ted Cruz had done… OH. MY. GOD. Do I really have to spell it out for you, dear readers?

BREAKING NEWS: HILLARY EATS OWN BOOGER!

And then for the next month, all the pseudo-news cable networks would be pre-empting regular programming just so the entire world could see her “snackin’ on the snot” — again and again and again, ad naseum. Then the so-called commentators (i.e., politically driven hacks and emotionally driven talking heads) would be carrying on about it for the next year. In fact, you’d never hear the end of it, especially if Hillary did get elected to be our next President.

Because Ted Cruz is a Republican, however, his televised gross-out is getting seriously downplayed. The media, in general, has intentionally minimized his gaffe because the Republicans own most of the print and broadcast media in this country. Notice how this unmistakable double standard has been shamelessly incorporated into the Republican strategy. The GOP Presidential-Election-Media Machine has been showing blatant favoritism to Republicans for years, and they’re going to continue doing it because it works.

On Super Saturday, Ted Cruz won the Republican caucuses in both Maine and Kansas. That means the man who refused to carry a handkerchief has gotten even closer to the Presidency. Life is good when you belong to the Grand Old Party.

Even Saturday Night Live — allegedly, NBC’s ground zero for satirizing & lambasting politicians — went easy on Cruz. The lame sketch about him that SNL did air on March 5th was so subdued, it virtually erased his embarrassment from public memory. Not a good thing when a comedy show refuses such a gift from the Comedy Gods.

Then again, who owns and operates NBC? Republicans! Republicans! Republicans!