This is what passes for trying to be responsible in Republican circles:
Hours after Pennsylvania State Police arrested a 21-year-old Idaho man for allegedly firing a semi-automatic rifle at the White House, the top student official for the College Republicans at the University of Texas tweeted that the idea of assassinating President Obama was “tempting.”
At 2:29 p.m. ET, UT’s Lauren E. Pierce wrote: “Y’all as tempting as it may be, don’t shoot Obama. We need him to go down in history as the WORST president we’ve EVER had! #2012.”
Pierce, the president of the College Republicans at UT Austin, told ABC News the comment was a “joke” and that the “whole [shooting incident] was stupid.” Giggling, she said that an attempted assassination would “only make the situation worse.”
She said this in late November of Obama’s third year in office. She said it from Texas. She said it after a bullet blew out an ornamental window in the White House residence and was stopped by a backup bullet-proof window behind it. Her vice-president tried to put it in context.
“Insofar as she’s a representative [of the College Republicans], maybe it shouldn’t be said, but she’s made a positive statement in a way,” said Cassie Wright, the group’s vice president.
“I don’t really see anything wrong with it,” Wright added. “It’s just a personal comment, not representative of any group. Just freedom of speech, you know?”
To me, the most telling part is that Lauren Pierce seemed to know her audience. She assumed that they would be sympathetic to the idea of shooting the president and wanted to tell them that it wasn’t a good idea. Coming just days before the forty-eighth anniversary of the JFK assassination, it wasn’t a sensitive statement, but what’s really troubling is that it is assumed that most college Republicans in Texas have had their heads filled with so much crap that they have a murderous hatred of a president who hasn’t done anything to deserve it.
