Posted on 10/15/2017 5:00:14 PM PDT by SkyPilot
Before Bob Corker, there was Jeff Flake.
Mr. Flake, the even-tempered Republican senator from Arizona, has for months offered stinging critiques of President Trump’s character, demeanor and truthfulness — the same message forcefully echoed a week ago by Mr. Corker, a Republican colleague from Tennessee, who warned that Mr. Trump’s reckless behavior could lead to “World War III.”
But there is one crucial difference between the two: Mr. Flake, unlike Mr. Corker, is running for re-election. And now he finds himself in grave political peril.
Mr. Flake is perhaps the most endangered Senate Republican, with an approval rating in one recent poll of just 18 percent among Arizonans. Mr. Trump has savaged Mr. Flake as “toxic” and a “flake,” and has encouraged a primary challenge against him that has left the senator squeezed not only from the left but also the right.
His fate is an object lesson for other Republicans who might consider voicing dire thoughts about the president’s fitness: Cross Mr. Trump, and your political career could well be over.
Mr. Flake, a Mormon known more for his decency than his independent streak, said he had no regrets.
In an interview here, he ticked off some of his earliest criticisms of the president — from the days when Mr. Trump peddled the false theory that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, to the time Mr. Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” to his call for a complete ban on travel to the United States by Muslims — before looking up and stopping himself. Continue reading the main story
“In which of those instances,” the senator asked, “should I not have spoken out? At what point should you not stand up and say, ‘This is not right'
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Maybe I’m senile but just when did Trump peddle the theory, false or otherwise, that Obama was born in Kenya? I know he challenged the birth certificate but I don’t recall Trump saying that he had any evidence that Obama was born in Kenya. And, by the way, how can a theory be false? I thought a theory was just an attempt to explain the known facts.
I never have understood the Mormon hatred for Trump and his supporters. I guess the President of the Quorum of the 12 looked through the Urim and Thummim at some new gold plates, and sent out a secret notice that one had to be a NeverTrumper to keep that temple recommend.
That’s the only thing that makes sense.
Perhaps some seethed, and fantasized that if Romney had been elected in 2012, their "high priests" would have been on that stage.
Many Mormons love Trump, and he loves them. But the leadership of the Mormons, including in the GOP?
Not so much.
He was born in Snowflake, AZ. No.....really.
Thought it was appropriate.
So proud of Arizona deplorables for driving Jeff Flake from office!
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