When Kari Lake was running for governor of Arizona, she had some remarkable things to say about the late John McCain.

He was a nemesis of Donald Trump and Lake, who ran as Trump in high heels, went after the longtime Republican senator of Arizona with a vengeance.

“We drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine,” Lake told cheering supporters after winning the 2022 Republican Party primary, her jaw clenched as she depicted the fatal punch.

She called McCain, who died of brain cancer in 2018, a loser and told his supporters to “get the hell out of” a campaign event. She accused McCain’s wife, Cindy, of being in cahoots with liberal billionaire George Soros to destroy America.

Forget it.

It all turned out to be just plain fun.

The loser label was used “in jest,” Lake, who is running for Senate after her failed bid for governor, said last week

2/19.

“I think if John McCain, who had a great sense of humor, had heard it, he would have laughed.”

But McCain’s daughter, Meghan, a fierce defender of his legacy, was not amused.

“Kari Lake is attempting to walk back her continued attacks on my father (and family) and all of his loyal supporters,” McCain wrote in a social media post after Lake laid out the, er, whitewash in an interview on Phoenix radio station KTAR.

-FM

. “I think she realized she can’t become a senator without us.

“We see you for who you are,” McCain added, “and we are disgusted by it.”

The tickle of the lake

e

“My father also passed away from cancer,” she further wrote

McCain’s response was much more emphatic: “NO PEACE, BITCH!”

(OK by Scott K)

It’s not hard to understand Lake’s change of heart.

Save that. A change of heart suggests a level of introspection and sincerity that seems beyond her.

It’s not hard to understand Lake’s change in tone and attitude. There are windows that are less transparent.

She dove into the Senate race after apparently giving up hope of becoming Trump’s running mate. (So ​​much for the time I spent at Mar-a-Lago.)

Lake is expected to face Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego for the seat of independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

Sinema has yet to say whether she will seek re-election, but with each passing day her candidacy becomes less likely.

In a state almost evenly divided between Democrats, Republicans and those registered with neither party, “Kari Lake cannot win… without sending messages and then getting the support of moderate Republicans and right-wing independents,” Barrett says Marson, a GOP strategist from Arizona. who is not supporting any candidate in the Senate race.

Those are the voters, he noted, “who propelled John McCain to more than a dozen statewide victories in his lifetime.” Although he frequently clashed with the far-right wing of the Republican Party, which today is Trump’s political base, the former senator did not lose a single election in Arizona in his more than three-decade long political career.

So Lake has gone from striking out McCain to sucking it up.

Many, even if they try, do not believe in her atonement.

“This change tour is all deeply politically motivated and not sincere,” said Chuck Coughlin, a former Republican pollster. The longtime McCain backer left the Republican Party and became an independent when Trump denigrated McCain for spending 5.5 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. “I don’t know anyone I’ve met who believes she’s sincere.”

Lake’s rapprochement with the McCain family is only part of her attempted makeover.

After months of claiming the gubernatorial election was stolen, Lake suggested she now wants to move forward with her false claims. “I don’t want to sit and look back,” she said on KTAR.

But it may not be that simple.

A top election official, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, has filed a defamation lawsuit against fellow Republican over Lakes

incessant untruths about Lakes, incessant lies about alleged

election fraud. In December, a judge rejected Lake’s claim that her statements were “rhetorical hyperbole.” Perhaps she thought “just jogging” wouldn’t have carried the same legal weight and allowed the lawsuit to proceed.

The Arizona Supreme Court is considering Lake’s appeal.

The courts have done a good job of holding the people who enabled Trump, including disgraced lawyer and fallen September 11 hero Rudolph W. Giuliani, accountable for lying and defaming others on his behalf.

Lake would have to pay too. Perhaps it will force others to think twice before making such reckless and irresponsible claims.

As for her Senate bid, voters should consider what kind of person smears a war hero

A deeply revered figure like McCain insults his widow and then, when politically expedient, insists that it was all a joke and that the past should be in the past.

Her shameless, shameful actions and blatant attempt to etch away the past are an insult to anyone with even an ounce of intelligence.

There’s nothing funny about such a fake.