Kari Lake wants to revoke my 'good American' card. Yours too, probably

I had no idea that citizens of our great country – even we humble journalists – could achieve the official rank of “good Americans,” or which department in the federal bureaucracy was tasked with bestowing such a lofty designation.

Or, worst of all, I was unaware that my particular “good American” status was in danger of being revoked.

For this new information I would thank Kari Lake, former news reader and Republican candidate for Arizona governor.

During a recent video rant concerning the Big Lie, in which Lake spouted, again, the debunked election fraud conspiracy theory, she said, “So, the people who are covering up this stolen election, I mean, I’m appalled by them. They should lose their status as good Americans, because they are not good Americans if they are involved in that.

“That goes for the journalists out there, I call them propagandists now, these propagandists who refuse to cover what is happening in this election are going to try to bury this republic and bring it down, and we the people will not allow that to happen.”

What, exactly, is 'good American status'?

It is a lot to unpack.

For instance, how are we “propagandists” attempting to bury this republic and bring it down? Does she mean physically? Professionally? Grammatically? (Perhaps by pointing out that the “bringing down” part of Lake's metaphor should come before the “burying” part.)

And which journalists “refuse to cover what is happening in this election"? It’s just about the only thing most of us have done of late. Or does Lake simply not like the fact that journalists print facts?

And what, exactly, is “status as good Americans”?

A day or so ago I received my latest voter registration card. Nowhere on it could I find such a moniker. I then checked my driver’s license, passport, Costco card, birth certificate, gym membership, tax returns and grocery store rewards identification.

Nothing.

Was my card stolen by McCain's ghost?

That’s probably a good thing, since there is ample proof that Lake wouldn’t know a “good American” if she met one. Because she has. I’m speaking of the late Sen. John McCain. Lake has spent much of her campaign trashing him. His ghost seems to haunt her.

Lake said, for example, “John McCain may be dead but he is reaching up from the grave trying to keep power in Arizona. And it was never about power that helped the people of Arizona.”

Reaching up from the grave? Was it McCain who snatched my “good American” card?

Then there was the recent video tweeted by Lake’s campaign in which she tells an audience, “This is time to replace that disgusting, dirty McCain Swamp with, maybe, I don’t know … a Lake? You need somebody who is going to represent ‘we the people.’ ”

The senator’s daughter, Meghan, responded with a tweet reading, “What trash this woman is.”

Then, owing to the times we live in, Lake responded with a tweet saying, “Thanks for sharing our video, Meg!”

To which McCain replied, “You’re repulsive.”

Good American v. good human being

I believe Meghan McCain’s last missive to Lake was both succinct and accurate.

We can argue about John McCain’s politics, but there was no doubt that he was a life-long public servant and war hero who had suffered horribly for his country.

Where I was raised – which was in America, by the way – we were taught that a son or daughter has both a right and a responsibility to defend the honor and reputation of a parent. We also were taught that it was small-minded and disrespectful to speak ill of the dead.

Whether or not doing such a spiteful, petty thing impacts a person’s status as a “good American,” I cannot say.

But it revokes any claim to the status of decent human being.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake wants to revoke my 'good American' card. Yours, too