Fann takes all the credit for extinguishing fire she started
You’ve gotta give Arizona Senate President Karen Fann big points for chutzpah.
None for sincerity.
None for integrity.
None for ethics or principles or veracity.
But when it comes to audacity, gall and shamelessness Fann is Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth and Tom Brady, all rolled into one politician.
Late last week, Fann issued a statement condemning a threat made against a fellow Republican legislator who had the audacity to speak the truth and publicly condemn the sham election audit orchestrated by ... Fann.
The threat was aimed at state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita and read, “We know where you live, we know where you get your groceries and we know where your family lives. You better do the right thing or your (sic) going to feel the consequences.”
Ugenti-Rita has said the audit was “botched.” She called the circus-like process “inexcusable” and said that it shows “what can happen when Republicans do not take election integrity seriously.”
She’s also pointed out what she called “the total lack of competency by Fann.”
So, one of the goons that swim around in the smelly cesspool of the internet sent her a threat, and Fann condemned it, issuing a statement that reads in part: “No matter where a person stands on the issue of an audit of the 2020 vote in Maricopa County, or any other matter of public policy, making a threat to a legislator or their family is completely unacceptable." She’s right.
Unfortunately, threats like this would not exist if the Senate president and fellow Republicans didn’t “Fann” the flames of alleged election fraud that they know to be untrue, igniting gullible constituents and conspiracy kooks and creating the kind of political firestorm that led to people attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and could lead to further violence at any time.
And now Fann wants to tamp down that hostility?
No.
She doesn’t get to be the arsonist
and the firefighter.
What she could do and should do is admit that the entire election audit process and all that surrounded it is a dangerous, politically motivated mistake. And she should be joined in this public admission by her silent enabler, if not collaborator, Gov. Doug Ducey. But that won’t happen.
And because of that, the threats, or worse, will continue. Threats that aren’t only aimed at politicians, by the way. While Fann’s statement denouncing those threats and invoking “civility” is like using an atomizer to suppress a firestorm.
And expecting not to get burned.