Lubbock Left

Today’s GOP produces so many crocodile tears that they should be bottling and selling the stuff.

Junior John in particular is trying to milk this one for all it’s worth. John Cornyn’s office sent out email Thursday and Friday with the following:

In a letter to President Obama, Sen. Cornyn expressed serious concern about the White House’s new program requesting Americans to forward email chains and other communications opposing the President’s health care policies. Sen. Cornyn is seeking assurances that the program is being carried out in a manner consistent with the First Amendment and America’s tradition of free speech and public discourse.

Sen. Cornyn’s letter also inquires about the collection of names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens that will be reported, which raises the specter of a data collection program.

Cornyn’s letter is already ridiculous, merely on the grounds that the White House program does not collect names and email addresses, but the content of the emails.

The letter is even more ridiculous because of the line that reads, “raises the specter of a data collection program.” Senator Cornyn gleefully supported warrantless wiretaps (and allegedly the wholesale copying of internet traffic to government servers) when GWB was calling the shots. Forwarding the content of an email you received is worlds different from tacitly copying one’s phone an internet traffic without consent. Crocodile tears.

Similarly, Congressman Randy has been getting in on the act with his birther bill antics. Of all the sponsors of the bill, he was the only one to decline to release his birth certificate. (His office issued the statement: Congressman Neugebauer will not be submitting a copy of his birth certificate.) Of course, there’s nothing remarkable about declining to show your birth certificate to the whole world, but it’s pretty hypocritical to support a bill requiring what you refuse to do.

Lastly, we have some local crocodile tears in the response that County Judge Tom Head gave to the controversial, borderline-racist text and pictures regarding Obama supporters that he posted on the public notice board at the Courthouse. Head’s eyelash-batting response was this:

He intended the posters, including one that contained racially stereotyped descriptions of Obama supporters, to spark conversation about modern issues, he said.

Nice. Head wants to have a conversation on a public notice board on which only county officials can post, and his important issue is the insulting innuendo that Obama supporters are lazy criminals. Here’s a better conversation starter: we need a new County Judge.

Grandstanding and crocodile tears.

Ladies and gentlemen, the modern GOP.