Flake: Obsessed, Consumed and Lost in Hate

Soft spoken, thoughtful and a principled leader were words that were sometimes used to describe Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. As a congressman, Flake built a reputation as a fiscally conservative republican, free market activist and a representative who was watery on immigration enforcement. Although most Arizonans did not stand with the Senator with regards to his position on immigration, his reputation as a fiscal conservative offered the general voting public definition and a path to what some would constitute his values and principles. Thus, helping him to be elected and reelected.

Today, his reputation has eroded into what some would consider a “man lost in anger” with little to no definition. Senator Jeff Flake’s visceral disdain for then candidate Trump and now President Trump has been consuming. Rather than rationally serve the needs of his constituents and the country during current budget and historic immigration debates which are threatening government shutdown, Senator Flake again abandons his elected duties to rehash, regurgitate and propagate his self-righteous disposition.

In the guise to protect a free and democratic nation, the senator, works to confound the President’s attacks on the media as false and disconnected. Flake’s negative monologue was tied with a common thread he called truth.

How is this for truth? Five months after the 2016 election Investors Business Daily (IBD) published an article entitled “Poll Confirms Media Bias: Is Fake News the New Norm?” The article cites a survey by Politico Magazine, which surveyed 63 members of the White House Press corps. Politico found that of the 63 members survey only 5% were Republican, 16% Democrat, 37% Independent and 37% were not registered to vote.

IBD also found when breaking down the Politico survey that 45% admitted that the media's coverage is biased against Trump. To put this in context…nearly half of the White House Press corps is admittedly biased against Donald Trump.

How do “We the People Feel?” Media Research Center ran a post election poll which found 69% of voters do not believe the media are "honest and truthful," additionally they found that 78% felt that coverage of Trump was biased.

Lastly, it is important to understand and defend our nation from influences that would color or interfere with our local or national elections. Many of us support Senator Flake’s statements of defending the integrity of our elections from outside influences such as Russia…but likely see the protection as more then one man’s scorn.

When do we hold the media accountable for coloring or interfering with local or national elections? Flake highlights “Truth” as a common thread during his self-advocating monologue…how can he stand and defend the biased spin of national media?

During the 2016 Election, The Hill ran an article, which sampled one Thursday evening of main presidential media coverage. The broadcast evening news, sampled by The Hill, included ABC, NBC and CBS. They found that the negative coverage for Trump vs. Clinton had a ratio 23 negative to 1 positive. Furthermore, The Hill reviewed the New York Times and found 11 negative stories about Trump and zero negative stories on Clinton, all at the time Clinton/Wikileaks broke.

Hard to imagine why a self-proclaimed conservative attacks a president who is protecting religious liberties, has appointed a conservative supreme court justice, ended regulatory abuses, passed historic tax reform, protected the life of the unborn, is unwinding the biggest lie “The Affordable Healthcare Act”, working to protect our borders and is an unapologetic American.

President Trump’s political agenda is America first. He has unabashedly repositioned the strength and disposition of our nation to the world. President Trump may not be Flake’s type of President but to the historic 14 million voters who voted for him during the primary and the 31 states who delivered 306 electoral votes he is their type of President. One does not have to agree with the words he uses or his method of delivery. However, it is hard to argue with President Trump’s remarkable outcomes in the face of the bipartisan and media opposition. It is no wonder the Senator’s once body-of-support has spiraled into a legacy soon forgotten.

After yesterday's self-promoting, and self-promotional "speech," soon-to-be former Sen. Flake has earned the title of "The Great Pretender."

Naturally, like his fellow Arizonian, his popularity with Progressives in both Parties (yes, there are Republican Progressives)likely will grow since his strong condemnation of his 62+ million fellow citizens who supported, and continue to support, President Trump's efforts to set back Progressive decades-long re-interpretation and rejection of what Jackson, in his 1832 Proclamation Regarding Nullification, called the U. S. Constitution--"the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defense in danger, the source of our prosperity in peace."

His Progressive stance, including his oft-repeated Progressive line about "our democracy," belies his purported understanding of America's Constitutional government, as is evidenced by the following excerpt from John Quincy Adams' "Jubilee Address" (50th Anniversary of DOC for folks like Flake).

“But this institution was republican, and even democratic. And here not to be misunderstood, I mean by democratic, a government, the administration of which must always be rendered comfortable to that predominating public opinion . . . and by republican I mean a government reposing, not upon the virtues or the powers of any one man - not upon that honor, which Montesquieu lays down as the fundamental principle of monarchy - far less upon that fear which he pronounces the basis of despotism; but upon that virtue which he, a noble of aristocratic peerage, and the subject of an absolute monarch, boldly proclaims as a fundamental principle of republican government. The Constitution of the United States was republican and democratic - but the experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived; and it was obvious that if virtue - the virtue of the people, was the foundation of republican government, the stability and duration of the government must depend upon the stability and duration of the virtue by which it is sustained.” - John Quincy Adams - "Jubilee" Address, April, 1839

For the benefit of Flake and his "admirers," John Quincy Adams was nine years old when his father was instrumental in the adoption of our Declaration of Independence, eleven when the Constitution was adopted, served in numerous capacities in the Federal government, including as President, and in the Congress until his death--which occurred exactly 50 years to the day from the date of the Declaration, as did Thomas Jefferson, that other giant of the history of our liberty!

Match that, Mr. "Pretender"!

An additional note for the Senator: even Thomas Jefferson, that great defender of a free press, had strong criticisms of a press that would take advantage of its freedom and used mistruths or dissembling, or served as agents of a Party--or, one which would "serve as a standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers."

The mainstream press, as they are called, along with Progressive politicians, may have passed the point described by Thomas Jefferson in the following words:

"Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions." - See "Letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785," in Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1984), pp. 814-815.
". . . he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him." - Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson's views on the importance of a free press are well known. Nevertheless, Jefferson was well aware of the dark under belly of a segment of the press which might set itself up, as he called it, "to serve the ministers" of a "despotic government."

Note that in the last of the following quotations on the subject, Jefferson noted, "But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood," he declared, "I leave to others to restore it to its strength by recalling it within the pale of truth."

"[A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632
"[I have seen] repeated instances of the publication of what has not been intended for the public eye, and the malignity with which political enemies torture every sentence from me into meanings imagined by their own wickedness only... Not fearing these political bull-dogs, I yet avoid putting myself in the way of being baited by them, and do not wish to volunteer away that portion of tranquillity, which a firm execution of my duties will permit me to enjoy." --Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:226
"Conscious that there was not a truth on earth which I feared should be known, I have lent myself willingly as the subject of a great experiment, which was to prove that an administration, conducting itself with integrity and common understanding, cannot be battered down even by the falsehoods of a licentious press, and consequently still less by the press as restrained within the legal and wholesome limits of truth. This experiment was wanting for the world to demonstrate the falsehood of the pretext that freedom of the press is incompatible with orderly government. I have never, therefore, even contradicted the thousands of calumnies so industriously propagated against myself. But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807. ME 11:155

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