On Friday, David Brooks, ever the admirer of the sharply creased trouser, and Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn were on PBS Newhour, hosted by Judy Woodruff. The subject of Ted Cruz came up and what happened defied description:

WOODRUFF: Well, I want to ask you about — there is more to talk about, about the Democrats. But on the Republican side, you’re seeing — yes, you saw this Clinton-Sanders back and forth, but, on the Republican side, among — David Brooks, among the so-called establishment Republicans, they’re taking more potshots at one another. You’re hearing a lot of back and forth between Rubio and Cruz, between Rubio and Christie. So, what’s going on over there, or is anybody making any headway among that group?

BROOKS: Yes, Ted Cruz is making headway. There’s — you begin to see little signs of liftoff. Trump has sort of ceiling-ed out. Carson is collapsing. And Cruz is somehow beginning to get some momentum from Iowa and elsewhere. And so people are either mimicking him, which Rubio is doing a little by adopting some of the dark and satanic tones that Cruz has, and so…

WOODRUFF: What did you — let me just ask, what did you just say? (Laughter)

BROOKS: Well, if you go to a Cruz — if you watch a Cruz speech, it’s like, we have got this enemy, we have got that enemy, we’re going to stomp on this person, we’re going to crush that person, we’re going to destroy that person. It is an ugly world in Ted Cruz’s world. And it’s combative. And it’s angry, and it’s apocalyptic.”

CORN: “Well, actually, if you go to a speech from his dad, who is a pastor, evangelical, Rafael Cruz, it actually is satanic. (Laughter) He — I watched a speech in which he said Satan was behind the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage. So, it’s not…

This is bizarre.

One feels the fear setting in on the establishment types in both parties as the Cruz candidacy grows from something they mock into something they could very well have to live with. One gets the feeling that Brooks is trying to damage Cruz’s evangelical support because they are “largely poor, uneducated and easily led” and will listen to anyone who writes for The New York Times.

Corn weighing in on this is just pathetic. He clearly doesn’t have enough of a grounding in basic Christian theology to understand the point being made by Cruz’s father. He’s playing it for laughs and would be surprised to learn that Pope Francis also believes in an actual Satan.

What is very clear is that Cruz is living rent-free in their heads.