Hypocrisy and ethics abuses are why Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen in the first place. She can control that, unlike two gay people trying to marry.
Nineteen days after the Supreme Court issued a ruling sympathetic to a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders decided to blast a local Virginia restaurant on her official, government-owned Twitter account because it refused her service. Sad.
Let’s unpack this, shall we? The Supreme Court ruled 7-1 that Colorado authorities "showed impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs" motivating the baker. This is what Sanders said during a White House briefing:
“We were pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision. The First Amendment prohibits government from discriminating against the basis of religious beliefs, and the Supreme Court rightly concluded that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission failed to show tolerance and respect for his religious beliefs. In this case and others, the Department of Justice will continue to vigorously defend the free speech and religious freedom First Amendment rights.”
OFFICIAL TWEET WAS ETHICS VIOLATION
I’m not going to call her a hypocrite on the First Amendment, she did say that she “politely” left the restaurant when asked. Kudos to her. She did, however, decide to tweet about it in her official capacity. Let me rephrase. She criticized a private business from the Twitter account @PressSec, which has over 3 million followers. (I can only imagine the response from Republicans if President Barack Obama's press secretary, Josh Earnest, had done that.)
This is important to highlight because Sanders does have a personal account: @SarahHuckabee. So her action appears to have been deliberate. And if it wasn’t, it was stupid, and I really don’t know which is worse. Beyond that, the former head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, says Sanders' tweet violated ethics rules.
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I understand Sanders’ frustration. I, too, have been asked to leave establishments. Not because of working for the Trump administration — a protected class among Republicans — but because I was standing too close to another guy. But hey, you know, being a Republican is hard nowadays. Having to explain a complete change in platform, having to scramble for rationales to support the horrible policies your boss has in place, crushing all those lies for the “perfect smokey eye,” I get it.
And let’s not even go into dating! Trump staffers reportedly are being “discriminated” against in that arena, too.
So let’s move on to the superiority complex that has plagued the Republican Party — a party I was a fan of up until 2016. As he should, Sanders’ father, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, came to her defense. “Bigotry. On the menu at Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington VA. Or you can ask for the ‘Hate Plate’. And appetizers are ‘small plates for small minds,’” he tweeted. This from the same guy who just a few hours earlier tweeted a racist taunt at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
GOP CAN BLAME ITS OWN HYPOCRISY
I fear the division is no longer between liberals vs. conservatives. No self-respecting conservative would endorse half the things the GOP is doing. The division is now Republicans and everyone else. If you’re not for them, you’re against them. But who knows what they’re for, at any given moment! The Republican platform now comes with its own alert notification to whatever the president last tweeted.
It’s all so disgustingly hypocritical (from both sides) that those of us who don’t ascribe to either of the main political parties are worried we won’t have enough painkillers for Republicans who are bending over ba