McSally fears Trump more than terrorists

Sen. Martha McSally isn’t afraid of terrorists, domestic or otherwise.

But she IS afraid of President Donald Trump.

So she had to figure out a way to talk tough about the former without offending the latter.

She can’t risk losing the president’s ringing endorsement. A while back he tweeted: “A brave former fighter jet pilot and warrior, Senator Martha McSally of Arizona has done an outstanding job in D.C., and is fully supportive of our agenda – she is with us all the way .... Martha is strong on Crime and Borders, the 2nd Amendment, and loves our Military and Vets. She has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”

McSally’s solution, as reported in an article by The Arizona Republic’s

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, is to propose that domestic terrorism be made a federal crime.

In a statement McSally said in part, “Domestic terrorism is in our backyard and we need to call it and treat it under the law the same as other forms of terrorism. For too long, we have allowed those who commit heinous acts of domestic terrorism to be charged with related crimes that don’t portray the full scope of their hateful actions.”

I have no problem with a statute calling domestic terrorism what it is.

But it’s not as if a terrorist like the gunman who killed 22 and wounded as many others in El Paso is going to go unpunished, or that having a law defining what he did as domestic terrorism will punish him to a greater degree than he now faces.

Still, labeling an act of domestic terrorism as domestic terrorism is a good thing, and calling a terrorist a terrorist is a good thing.

And it’s good that McSally is willing to do that.

It’s just too bad she isn’t willing to display the same fortitude when it comes to calling out President Donald Trump.

She’s been unwilling to criticize Trump for consistently using the same type of language about minorities as was used by the El Paso suspect in his sick “manifesto.”

She was unwilling to condemn Trump for racist comments about four congresswomen of color or about an African-American congressman.

McSally, like many Republicans, is unwilling to risk upsetting Trump, who has given her his endorsement and boasted of her being “with us all the way.”

That’s the sad fact of politics today. A guy with an assault rifle doesn’t frighten a politician like McSally nearly as much as a guy with 63 million Twitter followers.