March 02, 2022 08:28 AM UTC

This is the Face of the Colorado Republican Party

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE #2: Republican State Rep. Matt Soper (R-Delta) made it very clear today that he has no problem with Rep. Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert as the face of the Colorado Republican Party:

In short, racism is cool so long as it upsets Democrats. Just…wow.

—–

UPDATE: Jimmy Kimmel nails it:

pic.twitter.com/taMFKhA1FC

— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) March 2, 2022

—–

This image should make you cringe — no matter your personal politics or partisan beliefs. This is Colorado Rep. Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert and fellow Qaucus member Marjorie Taylor Greene SCREAMING at President Joe Biden during Tuesday’s State of the Union (SOTU) speech like they were all riled up by a Nickleback concert (which is actually something Boebert has done before).

It’s bad enough that Boebert tried to interrupt the SOTU by yelling at the President mid-sentence, something that is an incredibly rare breach of decorum. What made it so much worse was that Boebert yelled out right at the moment that Biden was talking about his son Beau Biden, an Iraq War veteran who died in 2015.

As The Washington Post reports:

President Biden on Tuesday called on Congress to pass legislation to aid veterans exposed to toxins while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan — a problem he said leads to cancers “that would put them in a flag-draped coffin.”

He was then interrupted by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who yelled, “You put them there. Thirteen of them!”

Boebert appeared to be referencing the 13 troops killed in a suicide attack last year during the final days of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“One of those soldiers was my son, Major Beau Biden,” the president continued.

In September 2009, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson infamously yelled “you lie” during a health care speech given by then-President Barack Obama. Wilson apologized immediately after Obama’s speech, saying “I let my emotions get the best of me.” Boebert, on the other hand, celebrated her insolence with dozens of childish tweets.

Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger, was apoplectic at his colleague’s disgusting behavior:

“She certainly doesn’t understand service and doesn’t understand sacrifice,” Rep Crow said of Rep Boebert. “It’s something she can’t wrap her brain around.”

— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) March 2, 2022

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds delivered the official Republican response following Biden’s SOTU speech, but Boebert effectively hijacked the GOP message for the night with her embarrassing antics. Chris Cillizza of CNN called Boebert’s outburst “the single most memorable moment” of the SOTU speech…and he didn’t mean that as a compliment.

“Consider that,” wrote Cillizza. “An American president was speaking about the need to help veterans when they return from the battlefield — and sharing his own loss of a son to cancer — when he was jeered by a member of the other party.”

Cillizza concludes with a point we are very familiar with here in Colorado: Boebert’s antics are all about political theater and appealing to her right-wing base of supporters. We understand that, but Boebert represents a district that is politically very different from the rest of the State of Colorado.

If Colorado Republicans do not speak out about Boebert’s awful behavior — and thus far we’ve heard only crickets — then they are saying with their silence that this sort of representation from an elected official is perfectly acceptable. Colorado Republicans are saying, effectively, Lauren Boebert is us, and we are her.

People in Mesa County might find this amusing, but the bulk of Colorado’s voters are likely to disagree.