Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

    • The statements he read were all about him. The students had started a facebook page to mock him and his position on gay marriage.

      <

      p>The real issue is that he used his position to gain access to the students to rant at them.  It’s about abuse of power and bad decision making.

      • I found the Boston Globe article on this.
        http://www.boston.com/news/loc…

        <

        p>

        State Senator Scott Brown, a rising star in the state’s depleted Republican ranks, yesterday defended his use of profanity during a student assembly at King Philip Regional High School in Wrentham, saying he simply repeated hateful statements that had been posted online about him and his family.

        <

        p>

        Some of the messages, posted on the social networking site Facebook.com, used profanity and made reference to his family, he said. Brown’s daughter is a basketball player at Boston College. The comments were posted on a page dedicated to a history teacher at the high school who supports gay rights and have since been removed.

        <

        p>

        “It’s understandable that a parent would get angry when their child is attacked in a way such as Senator Brown’s daughter was,” said Republican Party chairman Peter Torkildsen. “Senator Brown has said that if he had it to do again, he wouldn’t repeat all the derogatory words.

        • Here’s Brown’s official statement after the incident.  

          <

          p>

          At the presentation, I talked about the legislative process and how there are many “hot button” topics in play these days, including same sex marriage. I referred to some of the letters I had received on the issue. I continued by saying that these issues are divisive and bring out a lot of hate and intolerance. I read one of the e-mails that “wanted me to die” and another letter that included the F-word.

          I stated that even here in this room there is intolerance that has been directed towards me and my family. I showed them the picture and caption of me portrayed as the devil that was on the FaceBook site and read the name of the student that created it. I continued on reading exactly what the students had not only written about me, but about the teacher and some members of my family, verbatim.

          <

          p>The Sun Chronicle was far less kind:

          <

          p>

          The high road became the low road during a high school assembly last week in Wrentham and, because of that, an important appeal to civility has been muddied.

          Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, alas, became what he was condemning.

          Brown, a guest at a King Philip Regional High School assembly to discuss legislative initiatives, opened by reading obscenity-laced facebook.com Web site comments directed against him for his anti-gay marriage stance and, by association, against his family.

          He said some of the written comments attributed to KP students, whom he named aloud at the assembly, were directed at his daughter.

          The lawmaker held captive to his outrage many KP students who were innocent of the name-calling and foul language, and did so in a manner unbecoming to his roles as caring parent and respected lawmaker.

          <

          p>Metrowest got specific:

          <

          p>

          Brown said a facebook.com page dedicated to gay rights that was put up by a King Philip student contained a picture of him “with devil horns and tail.”

          “It said I’m from the underworld,” Brown said.

          He said other postings said things such as “I hate Scott Brown,” and contained foul language, and he said the “F” word was used in reference to his eldest daughter, Ayla, a former “American Idol” finalist. “Another said I should be dead,” Brown said.

          <

          p>So, as you see, it was hardly about people attacking his daughter. The real issue remains Mr. Brown’s bad judgement and abuse of power.

            • His daughter is clearly not what he was ranting about  His more recent spin has emphasized his family, but even his own official statement belies that.  

              <

              p>It’s instructive to compare the MetroWest statements on 10 February with the official statement on 13 February.  The official statement already talking about “some members of my family” rather than the one reference to his daughter from the MetroWest version. Basically, he was getting so much flack for what he did that he had to come up with SOMETHING to justify it.

              <

              p>Again, even if the issue were that “high school kids made fun of Scott Brown’s daughter” (which it wasn’t), his reaction was completely inappropriate.

              • Brown took it personally – which is reasonable – and responded with a major-league dick move – which was completely out of line, inappropriate, ill-conceived, and stupid. Just what I don’t want in a lawmaker. If he were a member of my party, I would be mortified.

      • Don’t forget to also include pure bad manners.  Scott Brown, the Kanye West of Massachusetts politics.

  2. I was puzzled as to what it was myself, but after reading this it is clear that it was supposed to be a phoenix.  That’s the theme apparently.

    <

    p>Far from not being able to take criticism, it appears that he did take criticism and constructively at that.  It’s suddenly gone missing because no one understood it.  I particularly liked benwetmore’s comment at RMG.

    <

    p>

    alternative logo interpretations:   (5.00 / 1)
    1. our shit is so abstract that no one knows what we’re saying anymore
    2. our meaning is as obscure as this reference
    3. we rely on mythology because it’s necessary in order to hope the GOP can ever get its shit together
    4. the phoenix, it rises from the ashes in order to restore CONSUMER CONFIDENCE!
    5. there’s a newspaper called the phoenix?
    6. one of our wives was unemployed and super bitchy, so we gave her the logo design job
    7. this phoenix intends to lose elections by a lot smaller margins from now on
    8. a candidate could live in arizona and potentially get more votes than we do

    • Is there a “thin skin” evident there?

      <

      p>As to the log, looks more like responsiveness then “thin skin” – responsiveness is NOT a bad thing.

      <

      p>As to using crude and hyper-aroused language when teens were rowdy and inappropriate, I suggest there were better ways to handle that albeit the protective-father thing is less worse than the poster suggested.

      <

      p>I look for responsiveness, self-discipline, fortitude, ability to build and manage team efforts, accessibility, good boundaries, intelligence, the ability to delegate as well as work hard, and practicality/pragmatism.  Not too much to ask …. for me, therefore, my preferred Senate candidate for the US Senate is Martha Coakley.

      <

      p>You note, I did not list “agrees with me on all issues all of the time.”

    • Lawn signs will look consistent – they’ll all appear faded and rain-damaged from the start.    

Archives