Tag Archives: Dustin Tanner

The Enigma of GOP outrage

A campaign flunky for Don Turner has turned his righteous indignation toward the least likely senate candidate from Franklin County. Talk about choosing a soft target!

Isn’t it interesting that, attached as he is to the campaign of proud Donald Trump supporter and candidate for Lieut. Gov, Don Turner, Shayne Spence somehow managed to muster outrage over a tasteless joke made several years ago by Franklin County senate candidate Dustin Tanner. The fact that Mr. Spence proudly boasts of going to great lengths to ferret out a questionable tidbit speaks volumes about Mr. Spence’s own rather icky character, but that is beside the point.

What surprises me is that Mr. Turner’s prospects apparently are so dim that his campaign staff has nothing better to do than waste time “getting something” on a Franklin County novice who hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell against the Franklin County Republican Machine, oiled as it is with outside donations from the likes of “hate donors” like Carol and Tom Breuer and the bashful Ms. Lenore Broughton.

The County Courier, predictably a water carrier for the GOP, leapt on the meager “scandal” like a starving dog on a rubber chicken, gleefully embroidering the story with feigned outrage. I can’t share a link to the mighty Courier’s two full pages of coverage, because there is none, but we’re talking molehill-to-mountain proportions. Slow news days can stretch into months for the Courier.

This leads me inevitably to ask, where was the outrage when disgraced Senator Norm McAllister stood credibly accused of multiple acts of sexual assault, including violation of a minor? Surely The VGOP and the County Courier could have mustered a little more sensitivity for the victims, all of whom were not only dependent on him for their economic survival, but also politically dependent on him as his constituents. Surely the weak exploited by the powerful makes for greater indignation than a sophmoric standup routine.

Republicans try desperately to avoid responsibility for their own all too frequent acts of gross misogyny, but whenever someone from the other side of the aisle transgresses, they are all over the outrage even as Democrats are manning up and taking their medicine.

Now repeat after me, Mr. Spence:

“Hey-hey. Ho-ho. Kavanaugh has got to go!”