Comment on Sen. Hatch called it an honor to be named ‘Utahn of the Year’; it wasn’t

Utah’s biggest newspaper anointed the state’s longtime Republican senator, Orrin Hatch, as its “Utahn of the Year,” a distinction that came with a nearly full-page photo on the paper’s front page on Christmas Day. The senator seemed to appreciate the recognition, tweeting an image of the front page and thanking the Salt Lake Tribune for “this great Christmas honor.” But the Tribune’s distinction wasn’t exactly an honor, in the strictest sense of the word. Along with a news article and the photo, the newspaper published a scathing editorial that took aim at the senator’s recent record, most notably his part in the Trump administration’s decision to shrink two national monuments in the state, and said that the designation was meant to anoint the Utahn who had had the most impact, “for good or for ill.” Hatch had earned the title because of his part in the “dramatic dismantling” of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, his role in helping to pass the recent tax code overhaul, and his “utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power,” the editorial board wrote. “Each of these actions stands to impact the lives of every Utahn, now and for years to come,” the editorial read.