I'm sure none of us should interpret this as anything other than the 'joke' it was intended to be, right? Because Presidents are never assassinated in Texas or anything like that? Huffington Post: Lauren Pierce, the president of the College
November 17, 2011

I'm sure none of us should interpret this as anything other than the 'joke' it was intended to be, right? Because Presidents are never assassinated in Texas or anything like that?

Huffington Post:

Lauren Pierce, the president of the College Republicans at UT Austin, said on Twitter Wednesday that the idea of assassinating President Barack Obama was "tempting."

At approximately 2:30 p.m., Pierce posted, "Y'all as tempting as it may be, don't shoot Obama. We need him to go down in history as the WORST president we've EVER had! #2012."

The tweet came hours after police arrested a man for firing shots at the White House, leaving two bullets in the executive mansion.

Pierce joked that "it must be a slow news day" after ABC News posted a story on her comment:

There's really nothing funny about saying something like that. No, she didn't threaten to shoot him. But she allowed for the possibility that others out there might want to do something like that. Even accepting her excuse that it was just sort of a flip, joke-y kind of thing, it was still out of bounds, particularly on a day where an Idaho wingnut is arrested in Washington DC with an AK-47 after a little target practice with White House windows.

You don't have to be an Obamabot to object to anyone being a smart aleck about assassinating Presidents, and this President has had more than his share of that particular flavor of wingnuttery, otherwise known as eliminationist rhetoric.

Personally, I think she didn't really think about what she said because it just came naturally to her. That's what happens when you feast on a steady diet of right-wing rhetoric. It becomes part of the daily vocabulary.

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