Corey Stewart is a Virginia Embarrassment

I am at a loss for words.

With the scrutiny being paid to social media of party leaders, and at a time when national tensions are already high, I cannot wrap my brain around the Facebook posts made by Corey Stewart.

Stewart isn’t just a party leader. He’s a candidate for Governor. He’s Donald Trump’s Virginia Co-Chair. He’s Co-Chair of Virginia’s RNc/RPV Victory operation. He’s the Chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors. He’s been in elected office for over a decade.

So can somebody – ANYBODY – explain to me why he would think this is okay?

 

Was he drunk? Was he high? Kidnapped by aliens? Illegal or legal? Did Ted Cruz steal his phone? Interns posting without permission?

I can’t believe that someone of Stewart’s seniority and experience would think that any of this is okay. Even the Hillary comments are over the top and beneath the dignity of any Republican, let alone a Virginian.

The Republican Party I joined in my youth appealed to me because we believed in personal responsibility. When someone makes a mistake, we don’t place blame on society, or blame their upbringing. We don’t blame poverty or wealth, we don’t blame each other, and we certainly don’t blame elected officials who have nothing to do with it. We blame the only person who is responsible – the person who did the behavior.

Hillary Clinton and Ralph Northam did not kill those five police officers. Micah Johnson did.  That’s who we blame. The same with the police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota who killed Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.

We’ve reached out to Corey Stewart’s media contacts to get a statement on this issue. We have not yet heard back. If we do, we will update this story with his explanation, and hopefully an apology. I’m not expecting anything, because that’s what you do in the modern Republican Party.  Or, perhaps, we’ll get another “my comments were misconstrued.”

A word of advice to any other Republican officials who may want to say something similar to what Stewart said here. Take your phone, take a hammer, and smash it. Then ask yourself what the hell you were thinking.

UPDATE

Apparently, we aren’t going to get a response from Stewart’s media team or campaign.  But Stewart was reached by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and told them “[a]bsolutely I’m standing by it,” he said. “I’m not backing down at all.”

The Virginia Republican Governor’s race just got a lot easier.  Stewart’s comments and his unwillingness to recognize that they are wrong and have no place in modern political discourse, especially in a time when we are as divided as we have been in decades, render him unfit for office.