Actually, I'm not sure there's much that Jeff Flake does understand ...

EconoSpeak:

Do House Republicans Understand Tax Policy and Consumption Demand? --I submit that Congressman Jeff Flake does not:

It is difficult to tell what Jeff Flake is capable of understanding. Flake was the only one (as in solitary, uno) to vote no on the Plain Language in Government Communications Act of 2008. On November 8 of last year Flake wrote an editorial offering his vision for "A way out of the wilderness" in which he advised that 'we return to first principles' the most important of which, now that Republicans are not in the majority, is recommitting to 'limited government.' So is flake a genuine idiot or a sophisticated PR hack?

But then again Flake appears surprisingly straightforward at times, and I can't say I disagree with him, in stating that he believes bipartisanship “tends to produce the worst that Washington has to offer ” and that "Partisanship is underrated.” Whether these verbal assaults on 'bipartisanship' show his lack of understanding of how the GOP has used the bipartisanship lie against the Dems (and the Dems have let them do so, repeatedly and self-destructively) or whether Flake understands the Republican ruse and still chooses to speak truthfully is a difficult thing to judge in a Republican politician, or even a Democratic on for that matter.