THE HEAD of the Republican Party in Benton County called it abhorrent. He was right.
Both the secretary of the county’s branch of the GOP and her husband, who was a member of the party’s county committee, resigned their posts last week. They should have, for they’d placed an article in the organization’s newsletter calling for gun-toting action against certain legislators.
(Sigh.)
The article called Republican lawmakers who voted for an expansion of Medicaid in this state-under a compromise called the Private Option-traitors. And turncoats. And envisioned that some deserved to be “bullet backstops.”
The article was written by Chris Nogy, the county committee member, and goes on in the same poisonous vein: “The 2nd Amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives. If we can’t shoot them, we have to at least be firm in our threat to take immediate action against them politically, socially and civically if they screw up on something this big. Personally, I think a gun is quicker and more merciful, but hey, we can’t.”
But hey, we can’t.
Isn’t he a card?
Or is this kind of trash talk Mr. Nogy’s idea of raising the level of public discourse in Arkansas? If he thought so, few others did. His prose didn’t amuse the State Police, who had to look into the matter before deciding there wasn’t a real threat to the lawmakers. But at least since the murder of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, some of us have had an aversion to joking about shooting politicians.
The immediate result of all this fooforaw: Mr. Nogy is now a former member of the party’s county committee, and Mrs. Nogy is now a former secretary of the county’s party. They were asked for their resignations, and they should have been.
It was a small silver lining to the dark cloud their actions represent. It seems folks don’t resign from office any more. These two did. And needed to.
Now may they go about their lives as citizens. Private citizens. But not as public officials. That’s the price you pay sometimes for stupidity.
Editorial, Pages 12 on 04/29/2013