Okay, let me put this in plain English: Jeff Flake is a nutjob.
How else to explain his being the only member of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against an innocuous bill titled the Plain Language in Government Communications Act yesterday?
Democrat Carl Hayden, the Arizona legend who holds the record for longest service in Congress, started his first term in the House in 1912, a few days after Arizona became a state. He never forgot the advice of Maryland Democrat Frederick Talbott, who advised the new legislator:
"Son, there are two kinds of Congressmen — show horses and work horses. If you want to get your name in the papers, be a show horse. But if you want to gain the respect of your colleagues, don't do it. Be a work horse."
Carl Hayden remained a work horse in Congress for 56 years until his retirement at the end of his seventh Senate term in 1968. Then a high school senior, I wrote to him that year and I treasure the letter I got back, safely enclosed in a plastic album in the bedroom closet in my Apache Junction home.
Jeff Flake is no Carl Hayden. In a 2006 poll, House staffers of both parties voted Jeff Flake one of the three biggest show horses in Congress.
Jeff Flake seems to confuse being a legislator with being a stunt man or a publicity agent for himself.
How else but publicity-chasing to explain his solo vote, in a chamber of 435 lawmakers of various political beliefs, against a bill "establishing plain language as the standard style for Government documents issued to the public, and for other purposes"?
I guess Jeff Flake prefers obfuscation ("the concealment of meaning in communication, making it confusing and harder to interpret") to putting things plainly.
If I had his pitiful record in Congress, I would too.
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