Ted Cruz is being pilloried in a most curious fashion, by people who ought to know better. Byron York, a reporter and analyst whose work I admire greatly, reported something Cruz said Friday at the winter meeting of the Club for Growth as if it were  news.

“PALM BEACH, Fla. — In a wide-ranging speech to the Club for Growth winter meeting Friday night, Sen. Ted Cruz looked back on his 2013 crusade to defund Obamacare — an effort that consumed Washington, led to bitter Republican party infighting, and resulted in a partial government shutdown — and concluded it was a fight he probably never could have won. "Is it likely we would have altogether defunded Obamacare then?" the Texas Republican said. "Probably not. That would have taken an almost perfect storm. I was never Pollyannaish about the political factors it would take for that to happen.” - See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/02/no-change-in-ted-cruz-2013-story#sthash.NMdDxSkS.dpuf

This was then tweeted by York, as if it were some kind of confession that Cruz all along knew the shutdown was futile and was just grandstanding to the base.

Link: Ted Cruz: Obamacare defunding fight 'probably' wasn't winnable. http://t.co/EL5q3MVqVV

— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 28, 2015

That tweet has gone viral, retweeted by Dana Perino among others.

Jeffrey Lord (another person I deeply admire) explains why this is a bogus point at Conservative Review:

 In October of 2013, Senator Cruz, along with Donald Trump, was a headliner of The American Spectator’s annual dinner in Washington. I was there, introducing Trump from the podium, and took note of Senator Cruz and his battle. Mr. Cruz’s talk was taped and is found here. 

The Texas senator made it abundantly clear that the shutdown wasn’t winnable because in fact the Senate Republicans “dive bombed” the GOP House that voted to defund Obamacare. Cruz was quite specific, saying that the strategy was as follows:

1. Mobilize the grassroots.
2. The House would vote to defund Obamacare
3. Senate Republicans would then unite with House Republicans. And then…
4. United, the GOP in the House and Senate would cut a deal with President Obama, looking to delay Obamacare a year as the compromise or some other acceptable compromise.

Cruz is quite specific in this tape in saying just what he seems to have said in his recent appearance at the Club for Growth. That being? That being when Senate Republicans “dive-bombed” their House Republican colleagues the Senate GOP deliberately, willfully sabotaged the entire strategy – or, as Cruz said in Florida, made the strategy un-winnable.

So why the fuss? Well, we know Cruz is roundly hated by the GOP establishment. As for Byron York, I assume the reporter’s instinct for controversy got the best of him. In any event, the usual suspects --- of both parties – are piling on a nothing story as if it is something new.

But I remember all of this vividly, because of all the predictions of doom in the 2014 midterm election. Supposedly the shut down was going to alienate voters, and Ted Cruz would singlehandedly take down GOP prospects for gaining seats. Instead, the GOP triumphed and Cruz's critics were proved wrong. But that is no obstacle to recycling old themes, apparently.