Discussion: READ: Flake's Full Remarks Announcing He Won't Run For Re-Election

The Domino(e)s are fallin’…Key to the highway, indeed

4 Likes

This is from last week, but it’s apt:

4 Likes

Is this mostly about not wanting to deal with Bannon and his crew in a primary?

2 Likes

I guess. Not that the General election looked like a walk in the park. Again, there are still choice Wingnut Welfare seats available. “Book early, avoid the rush.”
Interesting he’s serving out his term.

That was a great speech and ought to be read and reread. Sen. Flake quoting Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln has sounded a call to his fellow Senators that the obligations of office include more than being reelected.

10 Likes

My god - what a speech! That was incredible.

9 Likes

Damn, that’s a long fucking speech. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just list the abnormal things this Pr*sident does? Like spend most of his time at the golf course on the public dime, enriching himself? Or, the amount of nepotism and cronyism that never existed to the degree it has since this maniac took the WH? Or, how the party in power at every level is doing absolutely nothing about any of the things that are destroying us as a country, even when Fascism has reared its ugly head and Authoritarianism is now what we’re dealing with?

For all the lofty talk, it would have been much more direct if he had just gone to the heart of the matter and spent less time talking around all those things that his party has brought on itself.

2 Likes

Personally I liked it that a Repuglican made a long speech about American values and how they’ve been trampled by his party and his president.

9 Likes

I try not to miss O’Donnell so I catch Frum when he’s on, and between him and George Will they eviscerate moron to an extent no elected pol can do. Fortunately he doesn’t know most of the words they’re using and the sentences don’t contain any of the superlatives he’s fond of using. Except stupidest.

@tena

And so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent.

Great speech, and I’m glad he didn’t include Saint Ronnie who was not one of the great Rs. His governorship was a race baiting fest which also took him to the WH.

@robcat2075 Theodore inspired FDR to go into politics, who went so far as to marry his niece. For that I’ll always think of Theodore kindly.

@tena You like me are very tired of the complaining about Dems not doing enough about the problem called moron. An R will be listened to by other Rs, and that’s a fact.

6 Likes

President Roosevelt continued, ‘To announce that there must be no
criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by a president,
right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile but is morally
treasonable to the American public.’

Note that he didn’t say that until after he was President and was then opposing one.

That’s the thing about having people like Frum and Will and GOP members of Congress saying these things. Everyone expects the Democrats to say this stuff but it makes an impact when it’s the GOP saying it.

4 Likes

Not me. Maybe it was better having heard it in person. It seems rather highfalutin and sounds like he’s doing a poor imitation of “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”. If you like that kind of rhetorical bullshit, fine. It would have been much more courageous to attack tRump specifically for the ways he’s taking down the country. He’s still not confronting the problem. He’s talking around it by talking about “values”. What are those values? Being anti-abortion, cutting taxes, building walls?? Those are values Flake is for and his votes prove it. If its about tRump’s behavior and his party’s failure to stand up to it…what specifically is he referring to? He should have the courage to spell that out. tRump is a bully, and now Flake has decided to quit…and this speech only shows, bullying works.

I see something entirely different. I see Flake at least publicly and because others will see this I think, as a person who could not continue in the present situation because it is harming the country. He didn’t run away, he quit because of Trump and because of the other GOP who support Trump.

5 Likes

Not sure that would have shortened the speech at all.

6 Likes

I see Corker as one that gets it. Flake doesn’t. He’s just out because he can’t compete with tRump, his party, or Bannon and the Mercers. Sorry. He can talk all day and night, it still doesn’t impress me. No props from me. To each their own.

You’re welcome to your opinion - it’s not you that I think Flake was aiming his speech at anyway.

It’s the rest of the GOP and the GOP voters he was talking to and because he is GOP and not one of us, he will probably have an affect.

4 Likes

This speech, IMO, is as close to oratory as we’ve heard from a senator in a very long time. We had Cruz channeling Dr. Seuss, we had Boner yelling “Hell, no!”, we have both parties’ leaders deploying poll-approved soundbites, and little eloquence from any quarter. I applaud him.

10 Likes

Seriously - I love it that someone cares still enough about language and oratory and civil political discourse to make a speech like this.

10 Likes

:kissing_closed_eyes:

4 Likes