Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Governor vs teenage girl - no contest

(Emma Sullivan, on Twitter - via Yahoo)

A few days ago, I commented on Emma Sullivan, the Kansas high school student who got into a fight with Gov. Sam Brownback after noting how much the governor "sucked."

Obviously, there could be only one end to such an unfair fight. So yesterday, Brownback cut his losses and apologized.

Here's how Indecision Forever put it:
After a federal judge blocked enforcement of his state’s restrictive new abortion laws, conservative Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback was forced to stop spying on teen girls’ uteruses.

And (as we reported Friday) start spying on their Twitter feeds
Shawnee Mission East teen Emma Sullivan insulted Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback over Twitter while on a school field trip to the state capitol last week.

"Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot," she wrote to her 60 followers… But the humor was lost on members of Brownback's staff, who found the tweet while scouring social media sites for his name and demanded an apology through Sullivan's high school principal.

Sullivan, who now has 6,300 Twitter followers and has begun quoting Gandhi, says she hopes the principal will accept her decision not write an apology letter.

Upon hearing that she would not apologize, Gov. Brownback referred the matter to his insecurity guards, who promptly alerted the Kansas State Department of No Backsies. Fortunately, Sullivan was able to escape arrest at the last minute by getting a cootie shot from her friend Becky.

Since she is now rubber and he is glue, the insulting tweet successfully stuck to the governor, compelling him to issue a personal apology for blowing a lot
"My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms," Brownback said in a statement.

Gov. Brownback has yet to confirm or deny reports that he suffers from Bieber Fever.

Hey, Brownback deserves this kind of ridicule, if for no other reason than he's got his staff monitoring comments on Twitter!

An 18-year-old girl posting rude comments to her friends probably isn't all that unusual, and it's certainly no concern of the governor's office, in any case.

According to ABC News, Sullivan now has more than than 10,000 followers on Twitter, compared to 60 at the time of her comment. Hopefully, the next tin-pot despot will think twice about this kind of attempted censorship.

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