Ted Cruz continues to embarrass Texas and symbolize everything wrong with today's GOP. His latest act: lecturing a colleague on the Second Amendment as if she were an 11-year-old. Last week Cruz gave an incredibly condescending and insulting presentation constitutional "lesson" to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) in response to a bill she filed banning assault weapons and high capacity magazine clips.

The patronizing lecture explained 2nd Amendment rights in the most basic terms causing Feinstein to say, “I’m not a sixth-grader.”  No, Ms. Feinstein is not a sixth-grader; in fact she’s served in the Senate for more than 20 years (compared to Cruz’s few months).

On Friday, conservative commentator Joe Scarborough blasted Cruz in a 9 minute take-down of Cruz's understanding of the 2nd Amendment:

Did Ted Cruz not go to law school?” Scarborough said. “Did they teach Ted Cruz to read what the Supreme Court said especially in the landmark — the landmark — decision regarding Second Amendment rights? Over 200 years was written in 2008. And I’m just wondering, why would he use his seat on the Judiciary Committee, if he went to Harvard, to put forward a willfully ignorant statement about this bill violating the Second Amendment, because it does not. And Ted Cruz knows it does not. So who is he playing for? Is he playing for people who can’t read or are illiterate?”

You can watch the full 9 minute take-down here:

There are several layers to this disturbing display. Gender is part of it. True, Cruz has made crazy accusations against men (suggesting, with absolutely no evidence, that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had been paid by the North Korean government). But the let-me-spell-this-out-for-you-in-simple-words routine is something almost all women have experienced, be it at work or at a social function… Cruz's constitutional lesson to a female colleague who way out-ranks him, in seniority and experience, is another manifestation of that.

Then there's the idea that the Judiciary Committee markup is a campaign stage, and not a collaborative panel assigned to discuss and mark up legislation. The Senate floor has already been so debased, but there was a time when committees clung to a modicum of collegiality. That went out the door with Cruz's polemic.

Cruz's behavior is disgusting. It shows his total lack of respect for anyone other than his fellow Tea Partiers and generally, for the way Congress works. In his few months, Cruz has managed to degrade a war hero to a traitor and kill any left over hope that Congress might learn how to compromise (or work in a semi-professional way).