Jeff Flake made a fine speech yesterday, stating what is obvious to all more sentient than a doorknob that drumpf is a colossal boor and a danger to democracy, and vowing to take his ball and go home, or, as Colbert tweaked last night — “take his balls and go home”.
But early word is that fiscal conservative Flake will support the GOP budget and tax cut plan that will add trillions to the federal deficit, exacerbate the wealth gap in America and add hundreds of millions of dollars to the personal wealth of drumpf and his worthless progeny.
Way to stick it to them Jeff!
Gaius Cassius Longinus, when faced with a threat to the Republic he served, could have gone home to old Pompeii, or wherever, to contemplate ripening olives and lobby for the marble consortium but he chose to stay and fight as immortalized in these words put into his mouth by Shakespeare... uttered to liddle Marcus Junius Brutus Minor…
“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that 'Caesar'?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man?
When could they say till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
O, you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.”
When asked by those children and grandchildren of yours, Jeff, why you brook’d both an eternal devil and a would be king in our Republic you can at least tell them you made a fine speech shaming that which will not be shamed from the Senate floor before hying your ass to K Street.
Or, maybe you can't.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) got a lot of positive press for his defiant denouncement of Donald Trump from the Senate floor on Tuesday. But none of it came from Stephen Colbert.
“Mr. President, I rise today to say enough,” Flake said after announcing he would not be seeking re-election in 2018. “I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner. A return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent.”
“No, I will be complicit and absent,” Colbert added.
“First McCain, then Corker, now Flake,” Colbert said. “Why is it that Republicans only speak up against Donald Trump when they know they’re not running for re-election? They finally grow a set, and then they say, ‘I’m taking my balls and going home!’”
No one expects you to take the route Cassius did, Flake, drumpf is not yet Colossus or King, and the founders of our Republic bequeathed to us less violent means of dealing with tyrants.
But to save our Republic you will have to defy and challenge your obsequious and craven colleagues in the GOP and fight until the voters turn you out of your office.
Just don’t make the same mistake Cassius did and leave Mark Anthony...er Mike Pence...on the field.