Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers recently appeared before members of the Jan. 6 committee. This political theater drama launched Bowers into the national spotlight, and consequently relegated him to the sphere of traitorous ‘RINO’ Republicans – he was even pictured hugging Liz Cheney after the show. However, Bowers has a lengthy track record of double-crossing conservatives and their principles, and his well-deserved disrepute is widely-known – yet, chairwoman Kelli Ward and her Republican Party are only just now taking action. In a tweet from July 19, Ward said:

The @AZGOP Executive Committee formally censured Rusty Bowers tonight— he is no longer a Republican in good standing & we call on Republicans to replace him at the ballot box in the August primary. Full press release from AZGOP coming soon.

— Dr. Kelli Ward 🇺🇸 (@kelliwardaz) July 20, 2022

The official censure cites a litany of grievances: Bowers's support of taxation tyranny by providing illegal aliens in-state university tuition at the expense of Arizonans, his opposition to legislation requiring that government documents include only the two biological sexes, his use of archaic rules to ensure the death of election integrity bills, and his sponsorship of a bill to restructure the Republican Party from the top down, destroying the grassroots and promoting the Establishment.  In closing, the committee wrote:

The Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Arizona hereby formally censures Representative Rusty Bowers and shall immediately cease any and all recognition and support of him as a member of the Republican Party for his inaction on election integrity, his specific actions addressed herein including co-sponsoring Democrat-led bills that have opposed core planks and tenets of the Republican Party Platform, and for his general disregard for precinct, legislative, county and state national Republican Party leadership.

Ward and her allies received applause for the move — after all, Bowers is a threat to the people and an enemy to a limited government.  But what took the Arizona GOP so long?  The offenses listed aren't even that recent — most took place nearly six months ago, with one of them even occurring in the spring of 2021.  Alas, Mr. Bowers has a primary challenger, and given many of the early votes are now cast, the timing is suspicious, and the censure is all but worthless, and just another act in the political theater.

@kelliwardaz waited until JUST enough primary "voting" has taken place...

This would have been helpful a year & a half ago when we were recalling this clown...but KW wanted no part of it.

You only get to accidently fail so many times, until it's intentional.#StopTheRINOs pic.twitter.com/g8BzoSsfq2

— realSteveDaniels - The Steal Redux, 2022 (@StevenTylerAZ) July 20, 2022

If the Arizona Republican Party truly cares about Republicans opposing "core planks and tenets" of the party platform, and find certain legislators "unfit to serve the platform of the Republican Party and the will of the voter [emphasis added]," then why don't they continue the cleansing of the ideological swindlers?  Why doesn't the executive committee censure state senator Vince Leach?  He accepts donations from the Pfizer PAC, sponsored a bill to cede state sovereignty in the National Popular Vote scheme, and just voted for an $18-billion Democrat spending bill.

In a party polluted by Establishment operatives, the missteps are worth scrutinizing, and at some point, they ought to be perceived as intentional.  As Machiavelli said, "Politics have no relation to morals."