As soon as I saw the Twitter trending last night, I knew that the story of Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave an Lexington, Virginia, restaurant would become a top story for the Beltway media on the Sunday shows. After all, there is nothing more newsworthy than their friends and fellow cocktail circuit attendees, amirite?
And predictably, the Beltway media (left, right and center) were unable to process this as anything but a further Red vs. Blue balkanization and wasn't it shameful?
Never mind that conservatives have crowed and celebrated the idea that "liberty" means the absolute right to refuse to make cakes for gay couples or deny a transperson access to the bathroom that matches their identification.
But let that same refusal blow back on them and suddenly, we need to have discussions about bringing back civility and how we should learn to coexist despite disagreements.
But here's the thing: this is not Red vs. Blue, much as the reductive, binary-bound chattering class would have it. This is about standing up for decency, honesty and American values vs. unapologetic lies, bigotry and unconstitutionality. This is what the American people have wanted those elites afforded a platform to do, and what they've consistently failed to do.
So imagine my surprise when Carlos Gutierrez, GWB's Commerce Secretary, actually puts this into the correct and moral perspective:
I'm sorry that Sarah Huckabee Sanders had a bad day. I'm not worried about Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I'm worried about the African-American kid in school who gets harassed by kids who think they have a license to harass because the president said so.
I'm worried about the Hispanic kid, the Hispanic-American citizen who is harassed in school and called a member of MS-13 because the president calls immigrants from Hispanic countries members of MS-13.
I'm not worried about Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I'm worried about millions of kids and today are seeing a different America.
It's really that simple. To suggest that Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has conflated innocent children accompanying parents seeking legal asylum to criminal gang members, has somehow been wronged is the ultimate of white privilege whining.
Oh and by the way, this tweet from Sanders where she tried to sound oh-so-reasonable while implicitly encouraging Trump's MAGA-brained minions to go after the restaurant (apparently they're posting one star reviews at Yelp, bringing down their ratings)?
According to the former director of government ethics, it's an violation that should get her fired. That is, if anyone in the Trump administration actually gave a damn about ethics.
