(Optional Video Accompaniment To This Post)

It is not possible to imagine an emptier suit than Jeff Flake, soon to be former Republican senator from Arizona. There is a depthless void under that tan. Small animals have been known to disappear into that smile and never return. The man is the Empty Quarter of human beings. From AZCentral:

The outgoing Arizona Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee said he will evaluate the person nominated to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy separately. Flake's apparent cooperation would seemingly leave Senate Democrats still searching for at least one GOP ally to block a nomination to the high court sometime later this year. Flake has recently stalled at least some federal appeals court nominations by withholding his support on the Judiciary Committee in an effort to pressure the Senate to vote on President Donald Trump's tariff changes, which Flake opposes. "There are lots of folks out there who assume because I've not been in line with lots of the president's policies, and certainly haven't condoned his behavior, that I should oppose everything, every one of the president's nominees or whatever. I've never taken that position," Flake said in an interview.

Except that, yeah, you did take that position on the subject of judges and, indeed, you acted upon it. But now, with the balance of the Supreme Court at issue for the next 20 or 30 years, you’re willing to hand that decision over to a president* who actually is under investigation by the FBI, and with the tariffs that so bothered you still in place. Doesn’t it hurt when you pull out your own integrity by the roots? Do you freeze it for later use, or do you use it for mulch on your roses?

Getty Images

Anyway, and this obvious poltroon aside, I was thinking on Tuesday night, while preparing to depart for Mars until this all blows over, that the empty Supreme Court seat may well solve the Democratic Party’s self-induced dither about whether its candidates should run “against Trump” or not. This is a way to do so without directly attacking the exaltation of goobers who throng his rallies.

It is a way to attack his competence in office by pointing out that he outsourced the staffing of the federal judiciary to a wingnut-welfare terrarium in which tiny germinating Scalias are nurtured until they are ready to be planted in lifetime positions. It is a way to point out that Robert Mueller is still out there, studying papers and preparing indictments, without calling the president* a con-man and a crook. It is a way to bring up all the reasons why the president* is unfit for office without stating that flatly.

I mean, if they want to state it flatly, that’s fine by me, too, but some of them seem reluctant to do that. So make the empty seat the issue, and the president*’s unfitness for office the obvious subtext. Anything’s better than waiting for the likes of Jeff Flake to grow a conscience.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io