Mean girls need to go to detention according to Kathleen Parker

An important opinion was written by right leaning Washington Post columnist, Kathleen Parker, about adolescent acting elected female officials in Congress called “Opinion: The mean girls in Congress just can’t quit each other.” When we should be writing about policy solutions to real problems, we need someone like Parker to tell these eighth graders to go to detention and think about their behavior. Not to pick on the well behaved eighth graders, but a middle school counselor once told me, “generally speaking, eighth graders are not very nice people.”

Here are excerpts from Parker’s opinion piece which ran on December 4, 2021.

“First, it was the Squad. Now, it seems, we have the Plastics.

I’m referring to the four-way kerfuffle that began when Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) made an anti-Muslim remark about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Then Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) tweeted her disapproval of Boebert, which prompted the inimitable Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to defend Boebert by smearing Mace as ‘the trash in the GOP conference.‘

…The Squad, you’ll recall, was the name given initially to four super-left Democratic women elected to the House in recent years: Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. All are women of color and two, Omar and Tlaib, are Muslim, which may partly explain, but does not in any way excuse, why Boebert and Greene refer to them as the ‘Jihad Squad.‘

One needn’t be a great wit to create a nickname, but being witless is surely helpful to hurling racial and religious insults. As to the latter, Boebert and Greene proudly excel.

Which brings us to the Plastics, the infamous high school clique in the 2004 movie, “Mean Girls,” about a bunch of bullying young women in high school. The Twitter war that evolved among Boebert, Greene, Mace and Omar has all the markings of chick cliques gone wild. I wish it weren’t so, but what else to make of such underage behavior by some of the nation’s most visible females?

…To think that the Republican Party was once home to greats such as Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. Among other achievements, she was the first public figure to challenge Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist fearmongering in her 1950 “Declaration of Conscience” speech. Just imagine, if we still can.

That said, today’s four gladiators aren’t equally errant in the ways of manners and protocol. Omar was the victim of more than one inexcusable racist, Islamophobic attack by Boebert. The first came when Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) tweeted an anime video showing him stabbing Ocasio-Cortez in the neck. As the House considered censuring Gosar for his appalling judgment, Boebert tried to defend the indefensible, saying that stripping Gosar of his committee assignments would be unfair since Omar “the Jihad Squad member from Minnesota” sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee ‘while praising terrorists.‘

…Later, Boebert told a story at a private event about boarding an elevator when a Capitol police officer came running toward her. When Boebert realized Omar was standing nearby, she quipped to the officer: ‘She doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine.‘

Mace, who might have kept her heels glued to the high road, then entered the fray to defend Omar following Boebert’s tasteless elevator remark. But you know what they say: Never wrestle with pigs. They have more experience in the mud and, besides, they like it there.

So along came Greene, no slouch in the mudslinging department. A devout Trumpian, she alternately praised the former president and called Mace “the trash of the GOP conference.” Those would be fighting words without what happened next, but it got far worse. Greene accused Mace of not being a true conservative because, she claimed, Mace is ‘pro-abort.‘

…Greene’s lucky she escaped with a mere counter-tweet from Mace instead of something more fitting a woman who was the first female graduate of the Citadel. Mace is, indeed, pro-life with exceptions for rape and incest, perhaps because she is, herself, a rape survivor.

Then something rather splendid happened. Greene tweeted at Mace, ‘your out of your league.’ Mace simply tweeted back the correction: ‘you’re.‘

Anyone who will plant a flag for “you’re” instead of “your” as a contraction of ‘you are’ has my undying admiration and loyalty. (I have a cartoon in my office in which a smart dame says to her courtier: “You had me at you’re.”)

Suffice to say, the ‘conversation’ devolved from there, or, depending on one’s point of view, became even more delicious. Mace ended the exchange (for now) with ‘Bless her f—— heart,’ which is clear enough, but usually expressed more modestly by Southerners as simply ‘Bless her heart.‘

Bless all their little hearts, I say, and the wee spirits that guide their fingers across keyboards in a land called Twitter. May they all receive a biography of Margaret Chase Smith as a gift for the holidays, and may they begin their New Year’s resolutions accordingly.“

Note, I only edited a few paragraphs for brevity, but the entire article and can be found below. I love her reference to Margaret Chase Smith, as that is what political courage looks like. I think Parker defines clearly what these other folks are doing. I did call Rep. Mace about ten days ago and thanked her on speaking out, as it showed courage to be critical of poor behavior in her party when the party leaders passed on that role. By the way, being the first female graduate of The Citadel showed courage, in and of itself.

One final note, we should always remember if someone wants to be taken seriously, then he or she should act like a serious person. Name calling, labelling, and being snide is not conducive to what a serious person would do. And, it certainly is not what we should be getting from our elected officials. We deserve more.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/04/omar-boebert-mace-greene-women-in-congress/

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A short post with long meaning

It should be noted the GOP House leadership wants to remove the thirteen Republicans from committee positions because they voted for the infrastructure bill that most Americans want and will benefit from. Plus, it was passed on a bipartisan basis in the Senate with nineteen Republican votes, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who called it a “godsend” for his state of Kentucky.

Yet, these same “leaders” have been silent on condemning the actions of one of their representatives, Paul Gosar of Arizona, who once again has embarrassed their party and defamed his position. He sent an anime with his avatar beheading the avatar of that of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That is immoral in my view and certainly well beneath the dignity of the office. But, tell me what does it say the GOP House leadership values by comparing these two stories?

I was just noting to our blogging friend Joy that Democrat Speaker Tip O’Neill and Republican President Ronald Reagan often disagreed, but both loved their country. They also were good friends. At the end of the day, with a drink in hand, one would call the other to toast the end of another day. This excerpt is courtesy of the book “Tip and the Gipper, ” as Reagan played the “Gipper” in a movie.

Voting for something that you feel is right should not be hindered by tribal politics. And, we can all do a better job at civil discourse. Elected officials should lead the way on civil discourse, not be among our worst practitioners. Just because we disagree with someone does not mean we should take his or her head-off, terrible pun meant to show how dangerous Gosar’s actions are regardless of party.

As an independent, I disagree with some positions AOC has taken, but that is OK, as I agree with some as well. What I cannot tolerate is the malicious and untruthful of actions of representatives like Gosar. I cannot not even get around to looking at their positions, as their actions are so dishonorable We Americans deserve better than this. So, do the people of Arizona. Full stop.

Note to public people – followers believe your BS, so get it right

For some odd reason, people latch on to a public person’s coattails and are forever a fan. Even when presented with factual information that the public person lied, the fans have cognitive dissonance and find a way to ignore what they just heard. It seems their worth is falsely attributed to this choice to follow the person, so if anything makes them feel they made a mistake, it bothers them greatly.

What frustrates me is some of these public people do not feel it is necessary to tell the truth, when a good lie will work better. Being caught lying does not harm their reputation as much as it should. Some would say, lying and cheating is just a part of winning. While, that may be true to far too many, it should not be. Too many followers believe these folks’ BS, so the public person needs to get it right and not use their fan’s puppy dog loyalty.

Yesterday, one of those people Representative Paul Gosar routed an anime where his avatar murders the avatar of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC. This is not the first time Gosar has defamed the position he holds, but this is well beneath a sense of decency. We need our elected officials to be a part of our better angels and not among our worse demons. This may be deemed a criminal act, but it is clearly an immoral one. Sadly, his followers are cheering on this dereliction of duty.

Then there is the ever-persistent poor actions and behavior of Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz once labeled the most despised Senator in Congress by members of both parties. He has tended to prefer grandstanding than working with others and single-handedly, brought the United States to within twenty-four hours of defaulting on our debts, until ten female Senators from both parties told him to get out of the pool and solved the problem like adults.

Lately, Cruz has been on a roll, knowing he has a followers believe his BS. But, the thing that bother me most about Cruz or any elected officials is speaking of his state seceding from the Union. Really? Setting aside the seditious nature of that stance, he is really not that stupid to advocate for a secession from the Union. He is just lying because it makes it sound like he is a statesman. To be frank, statesman is not a word that is top of mind to describe the Senator.

People believe your BS, so please do your best to get it right. Whether you are a conspiracy monger like Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson or a politician like the most recent former president or his sycophants, two of which are noted above, we must demand the truth from these folks. Democracy requires an informed public, so when public people purposefully lie to misinform or even disinform, it hurts all of us.

What can we do? Do not believe a word someone known for lying says. They earned this treatment. So, if you start at the point, the odds are in your favor that you are correct. Check multiple sources of news, where they publish errata when they get it wrong. Do not get your news from social media or verify it if you do. I would encourage folks to check what I wrote above with other sources, eg.

When people knowingly are untruthful, it is frustrating. I recognize all politicians lie, but some lie more than they tell the truth.