Admittedly this is a stupid story, but it’s chock full of equally stupid subtext that’s endemic to our times, so there.
As Twitchy reported, GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold told a radio interviewer that it was “some female senators from the Northeast” who were standing in the way of Obamacare’s repeal, adding that if they were men, he might challenge them to a duel, “Aaron Burr-style,” and settle the issue that way.
That was certainly not the sort of messaging the GOP needed to bring people on board to the Obamacare repeal effort, and people found themselves with a choice: they could (and did) accuse Farenthold of wanting to shoot female representatives who disagreed with him; or, they could just repost those photos of Farenthold in duck pajamas taken at a costume party/fundraiser.
Plenty of people on social media doubted that Farenthold could even win in a duel, while quite a few others compared him to Jabba the Hut in the looks department.
It turns out that even Sen. Susan Collins, one of those female senators from the Northeast, laid down some smack talk about Farenthold. Collins was caught on a hot microphone calling him “fat” and “so unattractive.”
Republican senator calls congressman who challenged her to a duel 'fat' and 'unattractive' https://t.co/iLp9GFOtUi
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) July 25, 2017
“He’s so unattractive,” Collins told her colleagues. “It’s unbelievable.”
Just as an experiment to see just how PC we’ve become, we tried reversing the genders here and imagined the hypothetical response from the media had a male senator called a female colleague “huge” and “unbelievably unattractive.”
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Fortunately, this duel of wits seems to have ended with a pair of apologies.
Sen Collins says she has apologized to Rep @farenthold for calling him "so unattractive it's unbelievable," & he has apologized to her: pic.twitter.com/nCUyVQcYvo
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) July 25, 2017
That’s nice, actually.
https://twitter.com/loadie/status/889958944776507392
"I'm sorry I said you were ugly."
"I'm sorry I said I would kill you."— John Henry (@johnhenrytime) July 25, 2017
Class? So unexpected!
— Bizz Viva (@BizzViva) July 25, 2017
Okay, I'm sitting here trying to figure out why I care and I just can't do it.
— Preston Niette (@pjniette) July 25, 2017
Because two adults managed to wrap up a minor spat with apologies before it became the subject of another march on Washington?
It looks like most people were disappointed that Collins apologized.
so much for truth 2 power
— Rebecca (@RsvpV) July 25, 2017
Shame on Collins for apologizing to that cretin.
— Jurgen Kedesdy (@jkedesdy) July 25, 2017
https://twitter.com/matthewtmanthey/status/889952132891267072
Don't know why she apologized. He's an ugly motherfucker.
— bs dtectr (@bsdtectr) July 25, 2017
* * *
Related:
After issuing fantasy duel challenge over health care, Rep. Blake Farenthold pajama-shamed online https://t.co/W40l66z9H0
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 24, 2017
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