January 08, 2016 10:35 AM UTC

Stay Classy, Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

FRIDAY UPDATE #2: Liberal group ProgressNow Colorado slams Sonnenberg in a statement:

“The right wing’s all-consuming hatred for President Obama is well known, but Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg has taken disrespect for the President too far this time,” said ProgressNow Colorado executive director Amy Runyon-Harms. “During President Obama’s term in office, our nation has been rocked by horrific mass shootings including the Aurora theater massacre. President Obama has personally met the survivors and victim’s families of Aurora, Newtown, Roseburg, San Bernardino, and other senseless acts of gun violence. I too have met with some of them. The stories of their pain and suffering will bring any decent person to tears.”

“President Obama’s tears for the victims of gun violence in America, including right here in Colorado, are very real, and I’m proud to support a president unafraid of compassion,” said Runyon-Harms. “Thanks to Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, the right wing’s boundless contempt for the President is now an insult to the victims he wept for.”

“Sen. Sonnenberg is a disgrace to the Colorado Senate, and to the victims and survivors of mass shootings that have occurred in our state,” said Runyon-Harms. “We want President Obama and all victims of gun violence to know that Jerry Sonnenberg does not speak for Colorado.”

—–

FRIDAY UPDATE: Daily Kos, responding to our comments below:

It would be encouraging if “any and all decent” constituents of this pathetic excuse for a senator looked him in the eye the next time he shows up on their turf and asked him if he really meant to make a fucking joke out of lubricating an assault rifle with tears induced by pondering the slaughter of 6- and 7-year-olds.

As for those who believe the president manufactured tears to manipulate his audience, perhaps a few of them could be rehabilitated if they read what Joshua Dubois wrote in The President’s Devotional two years ago about Obama’s visit to Sandy Hook just two days after the slayings there left that community raw.

—–

A Tweet earlier this evening from Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, a Republican representing a broad area of the Eastern Plains of Colorado, mocks President Barack Obama’s press conference this week in which he announced executive actions to modestly tighten background checks on gun sales:

That President Obama had an emotional moment over the victims of gun violence in America during his presser has made a great deal of news. But a sitting Republican lawmaker responding so crassly to the President’s sympathy for gun violence victims, which we are inclined to believe is genuinely expressed, quite possibly sounds a new bottom in an already acrimonious debate.

We apologize on behalf of any and all decent people he represents.