Man did we have a good laugh the other day at the sordid tale of Elizabeth Lauten, the shitwitted GOP staffer and future crazy cat lady who thought it was a good idea to publicly slut-shame President Obama’s daughters for being teenagers and then needed God and her mommy and daddy to convince her that eh, maybe she should not have done that. Lauten lost her job as a result of her indiscretion and the story should have died right there. We had not counted on the Washington Post deciding to wring every last drop they could out of the smoking ruins of Lauten’s career by assigning a foreign-affairs reporter to drop that important story about international relations and comb through the twit’s Internet history to find some more of her embarrassing maunderings.
Man, who knew the Internet could be such a ruthless, unforgiving aggregation of humanity? Once upon a time, a person could screw the pooch, issue a few heartfelt mea culpas, and know that in time the Sturm und Drang would die down and they’d be given a second chance. After all, isn’t America built on second chances? Lord knows I’ve been granted a few of my own as I’ve stumbled through this thing called life.
Then the Internet came along, and information (if not knowledge and understanding) traveled at warp speed. Everybody’s life become an open book, and nothing ever really goes away. This explains why I (almost) feel sorry for former Capitol Hill staffer Elizabeth Lauten. Yes, she’s the right-wing troll who chastised the Obama girls, taking them to task for…well, basically for being teenagers. Lauten, facing a s—tstorm of blowback for her mean-spirited self-righteousness, issued a quick mea culpa on her Facebook page and hoped for the best. Unfortunately for her, the damage had already been done and no apology could un-write her mean, classless words. Lauten resigned her position…and that should have been that, right?
Not so fast, my friend…. The Washington Post was not the only news outlet to dispatch a reporter tasked with digging into Lauten’s past. Their reporter did arguably the best and most thorough job of determining what a right f—-wit Elizabeth Lauten was back in the day when she was still blessedly anonymous.
I find myself torn between two opposing ideas on this one. On the one hand, Lauten dropped the bomb, so she arguably deserves the collateral damage. On the other, the Post’s report digs into her writings while a student at East Carolina University. (Having been to Greenville, NC, twice, I’m here to tell you it’s not exactly a bastion of open-minded Liberal tolerance.) I’m not so sure I’d want to be held responsible for some of the things I wrote eight years ago (and there’s a HUGE virtual paper trail). In fact, there are probably things I wrote last week I wouldn’t want to be held responsible for.
On the other hand, we live to mock stupid people. As Ned Flanders might say, it’s a dilly of a pickle. You can imagine how torn we found ourselves, and how this war with our better nature lasted right up until we started reading.
If nothing else, the Post’s story reveals that in her college days Lauten was a neither very bright nor perceptive waif swaddled in a thick protective layer of White privilege. While most of us manage to eventually outgrow our college immaturity and sense of superiority, it appears Lauten never got the memo…or if she did, she sent it directly to her spam folder. When she came to Washington she struggled mightily, so much so that she couldn’t keep a job in then-Rep. Joe Walsh’s office:
After she got out of school, she moved to the Washington area, where she eventually got a job with Illinois Republican Rep. Joe Walsh. Things apparently didn’t go well. “She didn’t last with me. She had some issues and some problems,” Walsh told the Daily Herald, adding that her recent comments were “pretty stupid.”
Yep, that’s right; Lauten was too stupid and immature to work for Joe Walsh, that stalwart defender of all things White, male, godly, and Conservative. You remember Walsh, the Republican from Illinois, who, among other things
1) was $117,000 in arrears on court-ordered child support payments, and
2) mocked Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) for her military service…in which she lost both legs in combat while serving in Iraq.
Walsh is a class act, and yet Lauten couldn’t hang with him…which should be taken as proof that she’s got some issues and some ideas that really, truly suck.
I’ll refrain from succumbing from the temptation to engage in some well-deserved Schadenfreude…if only because Lauten presents a target-rich environment. I hope she’ll emerge from this self-created clusterf—k chastened and perhaps kinder, more humble, tolerant, and understanding of others.
Or she come become just another embittered Conservative troll who seeks solace and absolution in blaming the “Liberal media” for her career implosion. It’s her call.
