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| FRC head Tony Perkins has no room to lecture anyone on civility. |
The Family Research Council president, Tony Perkins, today regarding the controversy about Sarah Huckabee and the Red Hen:
At a restaurant in rural Virginia, liberals are ordering something to go: conservatives! For members of the Trump leadership team, there's no such thing as eating out in peace -- or, in the case of Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, eating at all. After a week of escalating tensions over immigration, the face of the White House's PR became the latest victim of the Left's "tolerance."
Her table had barely touched their cheese boards when the owner approached Sanders and asked to speak with her privately. They walked out to the patio where Sarah was informed that she wasn't welcome at the Red Hen restaurant. "I'd like to ask you to leave," Stephanie Wilkerson told Sanders. Everyone else at the table would be welcome to stay, she was told. Without hesitating, Sarah said simply, "That's fine. I'll go." Unfortunately for Sanders, who's endured more than her share of harassment on the job, this is the treatment she and other members of the administration come to expect. In the end, she tweeted, Wilkerson's actions, "say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so."
A few days earlier, Americans watched in amazement as protestors screamed at Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen at a restaurant in D.C. (This was after her home had already been surrounded by a mob of angry Trump opponents shouting "No justice, no sleep!") White House advisor Stephen Miller was another target, accosted by a group of unhinged liberals yelling, "Facist!" while he tried to eat. Florida's Attorney General Pam Bondi, who isn't even an administration official, had to rush away from a movie screening when a confrontation outside got too heated. The threat of real violence is something every conservative is starting to take seriously.
House Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) watched in astonishment as Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) tried to stoke the fire. "If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere," she said to the horror of even her own party. Worried that things could escalate, Scalise spokesman Lauren Fine reminded America what happens when debates turn vicious. "Whip Scalise knows firsthand the dangerous consequences that can result from making political differences personal and vitriolic," she said. "Harassment is never an acceptable method of disagreement."
You have admire his attempt to frame the situation. Perkins didn't want to chance being called a hypocrite by labeling Sanders being a victim of discrimination seeing that she (and he) fully supports the idea of "religious liberty," which is defined nowadays as businesses being able to discriminate against potential customers if they are gay. Also, if you blinked, you missed his attempt to make Sanders look polite in the situation. Perkins conveniently omitted that she later used her official twitter address as the White House Press Secretary to relate the story - a possible legal no-no.