Publicly tell Kansas Governor Sam Brownback he sucks and catch the blowback. It’s all the national news now. Emma Sullivan, a senior from Shawnee East High in Topeka, was on a class trip to the statehouse in Topeka when she sent this message via Twitter: "Just made mean comments at go Brownback and told him he sucked, in person. #heblowsalot."
The girl sent the tweet to 60 of her friends. That was three days ago. She has around 1,000 followers now – people, who like the rest of the country, know 17-year-old Emma Sullivan thinks the governor of Kansas sucks.
Sullivan didn’t actually tell Brownback he sucks. That was just a line she threw in to get a laugh from her friends. I would’ve done the same thing.
Yes, it was juvenile and disrepectful, but there are worse things she could have done on a class trip. I recall one high school field trip back in '80s in which a couple of guys snuck outside to smoke cigarettes. My friend Steve used a pay phone and randomly called some woman out of the phone book, pretending to be a local disk jockey from KICT-95 and telling her she'd won tickets to the AC/DC concert that night.
"I'll pick 'em up after work," she said, excitedly.
Disrespectful? All right, but isn't it less embarassing than making duck lips to look "sexy" and taking a picture of one's self in the crapper to post on lamebook?
The apparatchiks in Brownback’s world, however, did not find Sullivan’s teenage rudeness to be funny. (They learned of Sullivan’s inflammatory remarks when they were monitoring the social media activities of everyone in her high school class.) Sherriene Jones-Sontag, Brownback’s director of communication, expressed reaction from the governor’s office. Shock – shock! How shocking that a high schooler would speak rude and disrespectfully of a respected public figure, perhaps in expression of a political opinion, but possibly more motivated by a desire to make her friends laugh. Oh no, a teenager would never throw her own parents under the bus to get a reaction from her friends.
My reaction to this blatant show of disrespect by one of our nation’s young people? Well, I take a different view than Sontag and Brownback’s other lapdogs. I’d like to say I’m surprised. But I can’t. Nope. Having worked in the thankless role of a substitute teacher, I have felt first-hand the slings and arrows of adolescent disrespect for adults.
“Mr. Gay,” this snot-nosed girl called me. Oh, I was fit to be tied. It was all I could do not to lash out: “Yeah, well my wife is one happy woman.” But no, I decided to let that go like water off my back. Although I did respond quietly by filling out a PBR (pupil behavioral report) citing this young woman for breach of public manners for sexually harassing me.
So what is it with conservatives being so thin-skinned? Remember when Pres. Bush and his henchmen looked from the windshield of Shrubby’s limousine and caught sight of a school bus driver, middle finger vertically in the air. Boy, somebody got on the horn and had that man fired. You don’t disrespect OUR president.
Ronald Reagan seemed so much more secure in his mental health. Not that I’m a fan, he’s not my favorite guy in the world, but I loved that story Ron Jr. shared at his father’s funeral. (The eulogies rolled for about a week.) Regan was restoring confidence to the American psyche, appealing with a warmth and sense of humor that people found ingratiating. His gipper-like thumbs up sign helped communicate that feeling. So when a deranged man stood before the 1980 candidate’s limousine, middle finger invectively stuck in the air, Ronnie just turned to his family members in the car and said, with a grin, “See, it’s catching on.”
Modern conservatives fall at the feet of their avuncular savior, Reagan. So why would Bush and Brownback be so serious and hard, when catching a little backlash? An African-American bus driver? A young lady attending public school in hayseed Kansas? Who would’ve thought these nobodies would pose a threat to The Establishment? Well, we have to be proactive and preserve – what was the term that guy, Tricky Dick Nixon used? – law and order. What’s going to happen to these people who express “disrespect” for the governor? They gonna’ wind up on an Enemies List?
Singling out a harmless tweet, I’d say, is taking pro-active to an extreme. I’m surprised because the GOP is made up of tough, flag waving, hawkish real Americans. Last people I’d expect to be thin-skinned. Not like they’re a bunch of godless, jihadist-loving, Barry Hussein Obama groupie, Teddy Kennedy cocktail, Berkley-esque commie pinko Democrats.
Cracking the whip on a high school senior and reporting her to the jurisdictional powers of school administration -- that seems inconsistent with the GOP platform. Doesn’t Brownback have better things to do like taking government the hell out of people’s lives and bring a prayerful restoration of Judeo-Christian principles upon the Land?
It’s shocking that the governor’s office would use precious time and resources to launch a counter-offensive on a disrespectful teenage girl. Isn’t that a bit like aiming missiles at a third-world village with children and old people?
I’m sure a fiscal mind like Brownback’s can find more creative uses for state funds. The whole country knows how he’s trimmed the fat by eviscerating the Kansas Arts Commission. Kansas was the only state to obliterate its public arts vehicle. This was a pragmatic gesture as the foundation was eating 0.005 percent out of a $13.8 billion state budget?
Brownback is into saving financial resources. He sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and asking that the Clean Water Act (you know, that liberal rubbish signed into law by Richard Nixon) be scrapped.
He also is for cutting back on Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation staff so he can hire private out-of-state corporations, faith-based organizations and other groups of people who didn’t major in social work during college. Brownback’s vision would include utilizing local service organizations like the Junior League and Lions Club to take care of those functions.
Lions Club? AKA the 80-year-old man club? My old grade school principal, Mr. Bergen, is a Lions Club member. I know this because Mr. Bergen spent two hours trying to talk to my friend Marie’s crazy uncle Jett into joining up. This transaction occurred when Mr. Bergen rented that house to Jett and his agoraphobic wife, Betty.
“Thought I’d never get rid of that old man,” Jett said.
I love Mr. Bergen, but he retired back in the 80s. It’s been a long time since he had to deal with things like an 8-year-old girl coming to school with bruises and bizarre sexual behavior because mom’s boyfriend gets a little rough and weird when Sugermama’s on the night shift, waiting tables.
Aren’t Republicans supposed to be preservers of the status quo? Experts on matters of fiscal responsibility, the Constitution and morality? Let’s hope Sam and his eliminationist friends aren’t launching a rollback on 200 years of constitutional progress.
Because that would suck. Like waving a big “Fuck You” at the Constitution and that would totally blow.
