"Let’s break down the president’s tweet and see how much of his commentary is rooted in reality vs. the politics of protecting his chief spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. As most everyone in the country already knows, Sanders was dining at the Red Hen in Lexington, Va. — not to be confused with
the Red Hen in Washington, which has been
dragged into this losing battle — when owner Stephanie Wilkinson
asked the press secretary to leave..."
--
The Washington Post, June 25, 2018:
"Everything Trump got wrong about Red Hen, in one tweet""We nonetheless would argue that Ms. Huckabee, and Ms. Nielsen and Mr. Miller, too, should be allowed to eat dinner in peace. Those who are insisting that we are in a special moment justifying incivility should think for a moment how many Americans might find their own special moment. How hard is it to imagine, for example, people who strongly believe that abortion is murder deciding that judges or other officials who protect abortion rights should not be able to live peaceably with their families?”
--
The Washington Post Editorial Board, June 25, 2018:
"Let The Trump Team Eat in Peace"“How did any higher primate write this paragraph without coughing up a lung? How did any sentient mammal not red-pencil this paragraph into oblivion? How did
Post truck drivers not save their employers severe embarrassment by tossing that entire day’s print run into the Potomac?
For the benefit of those people also living in [WaPo Opinion Editor] Fred Hiatt’s Land Without History:
abortion providers have been stalked. Their children have been stalked. Their places of business have been vandalized. And, lest we forget, doctors who perform abortions have been fucking killed! They’ve been gunned down in their clinics, in their kitchens, and in their churches. They have not been allowed to live peaceably with their families, Fred, you addlepated Beltway thooleramawn. They haven’t been allowed to live at all. I’m no expert, but I’m fairly sure that a bullet in the head is far more uncivil than a complementary fucking cheese plate. What is wrong with these people?I’m old enough to remember the raucous town halls of 2010, when the AstroTurfed forces of the Tea Party shouted down members of Congress while men with automatic weapons strolled around the perimeter of arenas in which the President of the United States was speaking. I’m old enough to remember when N. Leroy Gingrich, Definer of Civilization's Rules and Leader (Perhaps) of The Civilizing Forces, was working out his Universal Lexicography of Insult for the benefit of a party that ate it up with an entrenching tool. Newt also emerged on the electric Twitter machine over the weekend, leaping to SarahHuck’s defense, and that was nearly enough to make me give up English as a hobby...
This debate is stupid. It’s also dangerously beside the point.
SarahHuck is the lying mouthpiece of a lying regime that is one step away from simply hauling people off in trucks. That she was politely told to take her business elsewhere is a small step towards assigning public responsibility to public officials that enable a perilous brand of politics. There are bigger steps to be taken, but everyone in official Washington is too damn timid to do what really needs to be done about this band of pirates.
So, Sarah, since I know
it is hard for you to understand even short sentences, I’ll put it as briefly as I can: Take a hike.”
-- Esquire.com, June 25, 2018:
"The Civility Debate Has Reached Peak Stupidity" by
Charles P. Pierce