Did Ted Cruz Eated A Booger During Republican Debate?

Make America Gross Again

[contextly_sidebar id="brFi7lZFgZvofDEqVBZnDOKenVaAEDmv"]While the most important policy issue of Thursday's Republican debate was indisputably Donald Trump's declaration that the State of His Penis was adequate, we would be remiss if we ignored the question of what issued from Ted Cruz's nose, or maybe his mouth. Virtually no one who was watching the Republican debate heard a word of Cruz's plans for specific cuts in federal spending, in contrast to Donald Trump's mere "angry rhetoric." Instead, Americans were all watching the screen in horror:  What the fuck is that on Ted's upper lip? Oh, gross, now it's on his lower lip! Sweet Baby Jesus on a Hoverround, heateit! 

There are times when High Definition TV is not what you want. We know for a fact that the mystery lip-schmutz obliviates any ability to focus on what Cruz is saying, because even though we watched at least five different versions of the clip to choose one for this post, we had to go back and listen to it again before we paid any attention to the words.

How fascinating was the indeterminate blob of matter -- possibly a booger, possibly mere food ejecta -- to the American Viewing Audience? Enough so that Gawker posted a slow-mo video of the thing (unembeddable, damn them, and also the source of our screengrab above). Fascinating enough that the Washington Post Friday morning featured this headline: "People actually Googled to figure out what was on Ted Cruz's lip." With a chart:  

Yes, and there was commentary, too:

We'll note that the Cruz lip incident coincided with the tax discussion. So the rising searches for Cruz:

• ted cruz booger

• ted cruz mouth

• ted cruz tax postcard

We are an elegant species.

Sadly, even the number crunchers of WaPo were unable to say with any certainty what the lip-goober was, exactly. Uproxx speculated that the substance was "his own tooth or a meaty booger," noting that Marco Rubio recently broke a tooth, so maybe Cruz did, too? The site also helpfully shared some Twitter Theories:

Dallas teevee station WFAA took a crack at the bilabial enigma as well, disingenuously suggesting far more movement of the perplexing particle than the video evidence supports:

In the high-drama television that ensued, it was passed back and forth between his upper and lower lip for the next few moments. Just after mentioning Trump supporters being “angry at Washington" and his rival candidate's “angry rhetoric," Cruz closed his lips around the crumb.
A well-timed rhetorical pause followed as the particle embarked on the digestive journey.

That's one magic booger. After Zaprudering the lip limpet, WFAA's Landon Haaf adds, "For the record, from my point of view, the crumb looked like it came from Cruz's mouth," but stopped short of a definitive conclusion. It makes sense, given Cruz's reputation as a habitual masticator.

Surely some smarty with a mass spectrometer will figure it out eventually.

Yr Editrix notes that she tried to get the hashtag #tedcruzateabooger happening Thursday night, but it did not happen, despite her best efforts and the obvious online interest in the matter. People, this is, unlike "fetch," a thing that should happen. Let's make this thing happen:

Do it for America.

[ Gawker / WaPo / Uproxx / WFAA ]