Former Cleveland Museum of Art Curator is Now Ted Cruz's National Security Advisor

Dr. Victoria Coates is Sen. Ted Cruz's Chief Policy Advisor on national security issues. But before that, she was a curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, consulting for three years on "The Last Days of Pompeii" exhibition.

Why on earth is this Art History Ph.D the lone voice in Iowa-caucus champion Ted Cruz's ear about international issues essential to the campaign, you might ask, especially when that Art History Ph.D has — as Esquire noted Monday — "zero national security experience." 

Turns out, Coates has been politically active all her life. Plus, 9/11, which was coincident with the "new media revolution," enabled her to blog under a pseudonym in her free time.

Donald Rumsfeld noticed her work and invited her on board at his bogus private firm to serve as researcher for his autobiography, a position for which she was equally dubiously credentialed. 

But it was enough to get her a gig as a "national security expert" with Governor Rick Perry, who was running for President back in 2011-2012.  She then spent a year as a fellow with the Neocon Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

During all this time, she was serving as "consulting curator" for the Pompeii exhibit. She told Breitbart that she'd always had a "double-track." She only missed her political science double major in college by one class credit! 

For now, she insists that Cruz is distinguished among the Republican field by his willingness to do the "hard intellectual work" of foreign policy, and that he "defies categorization" and adheres to no foreign policy doctrine. 

"That is also one of the great lessons of my new book, David’s Sling." Coates told Breitbart, speaking of her book about art history and democracy. "Liberty is hard to both achieve and preserve. Liberty is very difficult to impose. It can be encouraged, but it’s very, very hard to impose." 

Kinda like these instructions for Cruz: 

"okay ted, do some standing"
"got it. normal human standing" pic.twitter.com/wwORslEUdb

— matt, lubchansky (@Lubchansky) February 3, 2016