Paul Mulshine writes for the New Jersey Star-Ledger March 25, 2016:
On Thursday evening I got an email from a friend directing me to the article in the National Enquirer alleging that Cruz may have had five mistresses.
Most of the reporting is secondhand and couched in language that pins the responsibility on other anonymous sources who are making the allegations.
So Cruz could have just ignored it.
I checked around the internet news sites and no one was picking it up. The mainstream media are notoriously shy of picking up stories from the Enquirer, even though it is known in the business that their reporting is usually good – though you can’t say the same for their taste.
I expected the story to stay in the internet underground. That’s what happened with that 2008 Enquirer expose about the affair between John Edwards and that colorful character known as Rielle Hunter.
It took more than a week before the MSM started writing about the story that eventually sunk the Edwards candidacy in the Democratic presidential primary that year.
But this Enquirer story’s now in the headlines, thanks to none other than Cruz himself. After a campaign event Friday, he came out and blasted Trump for planting the piece in the Enquirer.
“This National Enquirer story is garbage. It is complete and utter lies,” Cruz was quoted as saying in a piece on the Politico site. “It is a tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen.”
Not to be outdone, the Donald struck back.
“I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin’ Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence. Ted Cruz’s problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin’ Ted Cruz,” Politico reported he said in a statement…
But I did get one insight from Trump’s first major supporter in New Jersey.
That’s Mike Doherty. He’s the Republican state senator from Warren County who decided to back Trump long before Chris Christie jumped on the Donald’s bandwagon.
Not long after he made that endorsement, Doherty found himself placed on a “black list” of Republicans by a pro-Cruz blogger by the name of Amanda Carpenter who wanted to see them all ostracized.
“I sent her an email saying, ‘I laugh at your black list you created,'” he told me. “I’m the most conservative member of the New Jersey Legislature. I’m a military veteran and my three sons are military veterans and everyone I know supports Trump.'”
That was the last he heard of Carpenter – until she cropped up in a blog post by Luke Ford asking what led her to compile that black list.
The Enquirer piece ran blurred photos of the five women alleged to have been involved with Trump. But in his post Ford showed a photo of Carpenter that was clearly the same as the one that appeared in the Enquirer.
This proves nothing of course, except what we already knew: that Carpenter is a Cruz supporter. And Doherty said he’s drawing no conclusions – other than the rather obvious one about Carpenter being a loudmouth.
Meanwhile another top Jersey conservative, Steve Lonegan, was just on the Curtis Sliwa show on WABC radio defending Cruz and attacking Trump for allegedly planting the story via Roger Stone, a Republican activist who’s known for his slick tricks.
Lonegan, who’s working for the Cruz campaign, said he expects it to come out that Trump planted the story.
I have no idea how all of this will turn out.
But it sure is fun to watch.
Somehow the Hillary Clinton/Bernie Sanders show just doesn’t measure up.
