All the political buzz is about Ted Cruz today. Little of it is flattering.

Having run a scorched-earth campaign calling for defunding Obamacare by any possible means, he has reached his put up or shut up moment.

After months of fiery rhetoric, Cruz and his allies are scrambling to salvage their strategy. For starters, Cruz wants Reid to make an exception to Senate rules that would make it easier for Republicans to block Obamacare funding.

And he expects Sen. Reid to do this, why?

When that fails, Cruz wants other GOP Senators to vote against a procedural bill that will allow the Senate to consider the House bill. In other words, he wants them to vote against the House bill that defunds Obamacare. Heritage Action already has warned the GOP senators that a vote against the House bill will look bad on their wingnut scorecards.

So when that fails, he wants the House to pass individual funding bills to keep the government from shutting down.

“The House should hold its ground and start passing smaller resolutions one department at a time,” Cruz said. “The House is the only body where the Republicans have a majority. My job is [providing] as much support and air cover as we can for the House to stand up and lead.”

Such as?

Regardless, the House should stand its ground, and if Reid kills this Continuing Resolution then the House should pass smaller CRs one at a time, starting with the military. Dare Reid to keep voting to shut down the government.

That’s right. He wants to hold the military hostage to defund Obamacare.

I doubt even Cruz expects any of this to happen . He’s trying to cover his butt so he can blame everybody else if the GOP fails to stop Obamacare.

See also Charles Pierce.