Andy Tobin: AZ House Hypocrite-In-Chief

Laurie Roberts, a columnist for the Arizona Republic has mounted a public awareness campaign/series of columns called "De-kookify the Capitol".  In it, she shines a light on some of the looniest members of the lege.

And being a pretty honest person, Roberts' had to select Republicans as the kookiest members of the lege (one of the downsides of having a supermajority is that the kooks get to run wild.  And run they did...)

Naturally, House Speaker Andy Tobin had to weigh in on the matter, even though he wasn't named as one of the "kooks" (and trust me, if I had written the list, it would have had 61 names on it, including his).

He responded with an op-ed piece published in the Republic, excoriating Roberts for daring to criticize the members of the lege, and the Republic for publishing that criticism.

Most All of it is utterly hypocritical BS, and Tobin sets the tone for his piece in the opening sentence (emphasis mine) -

Only The Arizona Republic would allow one of its employees to disrespect public servants...

Tobin and his cohorts have spent years disrespecting teachers, police officers, firefighters, highway workers, and any other people who serve the public by working to make society a more educated, safer, and smoother-functioning place.

Tobin et. al. have mounted repeated attacks on teachers (union busting bills), all state employees (turning the state's merit protection employment system into a winner-takes-all spoils system controlled by politicians), public safety (guns on campus), democracy (birther bills, interfering in municipal elections), women's rights to control their own bodies (anti-choice and anti-contraception bills), Arizona's future fiscal stability (massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy) and Arizona's Latino population (creating a state-sponsored militia force to target Mexican immigrants, among *many* other bills).

What they haven't done is pass any bills that actually *help* the public, even refusing to change a couple of words in Arizona law that would have allowed long-term unemployed Arizonans to receive a few more weeks of federal unemployment benefits.  A change that would have cost the state absolutely nothing.

However, Tobin tries to wrap himself and his gang caucus in some sort of mythical "public servant" cloak that he apparently believes immunizes him (and the rest of the wingnuts in his caucus) from criticism.

Such immunity from criticism doesn't exist, even for actual public servants.  If it did, much of the time, the lege would have nothing to spout off about.  OK, other than women, Latinos, members of the LGBT community, other racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities, people who disagree with them, black helicopters, UFOs...

And the only way that Tobin et. al. can be considered "public servants" is if "public" is defined as "lobbyists ranging from Cathi Herrod to Chuck Coughlin and all of the wingnuts and corporate stooges in between".