Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) made a classic social media blunder on Tuesday, thanking the Salt Lake Tribune for an editorial that called out “his utter lack of integrity.”
“Grateful for this great Christmas honor from the Salt Lake Tribune,” the 83-year-old Hatch tweeted in response to a decision by the Salt Lake Tribune to name him the “Utahn of the Year.”
If Hatch did read the actual story and the paper’s explanation of its decision, the Republican senator might not have been so quick to share the news.
Grateful for this great Christmas honor from the Salt Lake Tribune. For the record, I voted for @SpencerJCox and @rudygobert27. #utpol pic.twitter.com/7iFOBK6TWf
— Orrin G. Hatch Foundation (@OrrinHatch) December 25, 2017
“The selection of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch as the 2017 Utahn of the Year has little to do with the fact that, after 42 years, he is the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history, that he has been a senator from Utah longer than three-fifths of the state’s population has been alive,” the paper wrote.
Instead, the editorial says the seven term Senator was given the honor as a result of more dubious distinctions including, “his utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.”
The piece then called on him to not seek another term in 2018 saying the move would choke off a rising generation of leaders in the state and would be nothing less than “theft from the Utah electorate.”
The Tribune also blasted Hatch’s role in shrinking the state’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
The editorial itself was so nasty, it raised eyebrows in various media reports, including The Hill, before Hatch tweeted about it.
A spokesperson for the Senator did not immediately respond to request for comment from TheWrap.