Kari Lake has just 1 impulse: Attack! Attack! Attack!

Kari Lake went to court to reveal what she believes were shadowy forces that manipulated the Arizona electoral system and stole from her the governor’s seat.

She had no case. She had no evidence.

But she did reveal something important about herself.

Her extreme limitations.

With Lake there is only one strategy – Attack! Attack! Attack!

The problem with all attack, all the time

When she kicked off her primary campaign she brought a sledge hammer to bust up the left-wing media establishment. When she kicked off her general-election campaign, she slashed away at moderate Republicans.

When she lost the election to Katie Hobbs, she attacked Arizona’s electoral system in court. And when she lost in court, she went to social media and attacked the judge.

When attack is your only strategy, you do things that are extraordinarily foolish.

Key facts:Behind the claims in Kari Lake's election challenge

And on Monday, Lake pulled a doozy.

She tweeted out an opinion piece by a former Maricopa County prosecutor, Rachel Alexander, on the conservative website TownHall.com.

In it, Alexander accused Peter Thompson, the Maricopa County Superior Court judge who presided over Lake’s election lawsuit, of putting on a “sham trial.”

Lake repeated a claim with no evidence

Alexander argued that the judge made the hearing look “fair to the general public that doesn’t know any better, but to legal minds (it) was a travesty of justice.”

If those accusations weren’t scurrilous enough, Alexander wrote, “Legal experts believe his decision was ghostwritten, they suspect top left-wing attorneys like Marc Elias emailed him what to say.”

Marc Elias represents Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs.

Such accusations are outrageous. To publish them without any proof disqualifies Alexander as any kind of legitimate commentator.

But she had already managed that when she played a support role a decade ago in then-County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ racketeering lawsuit against his perceived political enemies.

For that, the Arizona Supreme Court in 2012 temporarily suspended her license to practice law.

That Lake would use her Twitter channel to spread Alexander’s slurs against Judge Thompson showed terrible judgment.

Lake would later erase the tweet.

That tweet was used against her

But not before Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Tom Liddy picked up on it and used it in his argument to try to persuade the judge to impose sanctions on Lake for her ill-advised lawsuit:

“Plaintiff’s claims were also made in bad faith, as demonstrated by her scattershot approach to litigation, her claims’ lack of legal and factual merit, and this action’s place as part of a larger scheme carried out by Plaintiff to spread disinformation about elections and election results in Maricopa County,” he wrote, as reported by Law & Crime. “And she has not stopped.”

“Despite this Court’s ruling finding that Plaintiff had utterly failed to prove any of her claims […] Ms. Lake attacked this Court’s integrity,” Liddy wrote.

Lake was fortunate Judge Thompson didn’t throw the book at her. On Tuesday he rebuffed defense requests for sanctions and $700,000 in attorney fees, reported The Arizona Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl. However, he required payment of $33,000 for expert witnesses hired by Katie Hobbs.

Kari Lake had a high moment in the general election when the polls were pointing to her victory and national commentators left and right had begun to recognize her talent as a communicator.

2 facts that Kari Lake will not accept

Does she have a career in national media or politics?

Perhaps. But she is damaged goods. It wasn’t just her defeat, but the graceless way in which she refused to give in to facts.

Maricopa County election officials made some mistakes, but they did not rig the election.

That’s one fact.

The other was that Donald Trump had an expiration date, and it passed well before Lake won his endorsement and inherited his appetite for attack.

Today they are two politicians in a tenuous spot – perishable items ready to be pulled from the shelf.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic. He can be reached at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake lawsuit proves she can only attack. Now, she's damaged goods