Geez, how thin-skinned can you get? I'd think Gov. Sam Brownback's staff would have better things to do than trolling Twitter looking for disparaging comments about their boss. Well, okay, actually I can understand them monitoring the word on the street, uh, tweet. But reporting a high school student to the principal because she said this? Really?

Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot

The principal is insisting that high school student Emma Sullivan, who authored the tweet, write letters of apology to pretty much everyone in the western world.

Here's the thing. Aside from that pesky First Amendment, which protects political speech, I find it extremely unlikely that this young woman actually said, "You suck," to Brownback's face. Had she done so, there would have been great uproar at the time. Twitter, with its 140-character limit, lends itself to shorthand. She didn't have space to elaborate on the political points she made in opposition to Brownback's policies, so she boiled them down to "told him he sucked".

Here's the other thing. Where were Brownback's staffers when Rush Limbaugh referred to our African-American First Lady as "uppity", a term fraught with racist and sexist history? Did they miss that one in their rush (ha) to find high school students saying rude things online about the governor?

See, I don't really think it's the responsibility of Brownback's staffers to call out Limbaugh (although the silence from Republican leaders is just embarrassing), but they don't have any business making a big deal out of a tweet sent by someone who doesn't have a nationally syndicated radio show either.

Yeah, the language was rude. But Republicans getting their panties in a bunch about it is pretty damn hypocritical when their national spokesperson spews racism, sexism and homophobia on a daily basis to an audience of millions.

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Of course, if Republican leaders did dare to speak out about Limbaugh, they also would find themselves in the principal's office, forced to apologize for exercising their First Amendment rights.

via Think Progress