Dear Governor Brownback...

We have recently been made aware of your traumatic experience at the hands of Emma Sullivan, whom to all outward appearances seems to be a high school senior, but is apparently a weapons grade Twitter Terrorist. Now, as educational technicians we should tell you that we have on more than on occasion suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous diction from certain elements of the teen aged population and thus our advice comes from a wealth of experience. To wit:

Grow a pair.

See, young people, particularly young people with 140 characters tend not to be overly explanatory in their critiques of various policies and positions, so instead of "I find Governor Brownback's policies to be regressive, ill conceived and patently unfair, more than likely resulting in the exact opposite outcome to that which he intends," you get "Dude blows." Now, while this particular expression may be lacking in nuance, it succinctly contains the author's studied conclusion vis-a-vis your leadership of the state, and since--as we understand it--this particular interpretation of your administration was broadcast to a grand total of 60 people, well, as our old daddy used to say, we feel for you...but we just can't reach you.

Now, you may plead ignorance to the whole thing and say it was your director of communications Sherienne Jones-Sontag, who responded to the Tweet as part of routine media monitoring, but that just makes it seem like you're the type of guy that lets other people fight his battles. Pretty lame Mr. Governor sir, pretty lame. And if you're so concerned about what the media are saying about you that you routinely monitor it clear down to tweets from teenagers, why not just have a contest where you give away something to people who "like" your Facebook page. You'll get plenty of friends that way.

See, here's the thing about insults from teenagers: They have a very short shelf life. It's sort of like you're walking down the street and a car full of kids goes by. One of the occupants recognizes you, rolls down the window and shouts some appropriately inappropriate comment like "Neanderthal," or "Hey Brownie, evolve this!" and almost before you register the comment the carload of now giggling post-pubescents is around the corner and gone, their contribution to political discourse fading away on the breeze, their attention now focused on some new shiny thing because Governor Brownback here's the truth: Teenagers are natural existentialists who emphasize the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe. That hostile or indifferent universe thing, Governor? That would be you.

So you violated the first rule of responding to high school insults which is, don't respond to high school insults, and by so doing, we are sorry to say Mr. Governor sir, you have validated the comment because only someone who truly blows would put up such a fuss over being informed of the obvious. Not only that, but you've managed to drag poor Principal Karl R. Krawitz into the mess causing him to forget the first thing they teach you in teacher school, namely, don't make a rule you can't enforce.

This is well and truly a mess Governor and there is only one way out of it now, which is to punish the snot out of this little girl, thus proving to yourself that you are an upstanding man of principle who demands the respect that he has earned, and showing everyone else that Emma pretty much got it right.  

Your friend,
Ironicus Maximus


PS: As for you Principal Krawitz, given the speed with which you abandoned Emma and rushed to jam your nose up Brownback's butt we pretty much figure you don't have much credibility left to lose, so do what you want, Emma's already learned a valuable lesson from you about adults and trust. 

UPDATE:  Brownback engages in rhetorical ju jitsu, apologizes to Emma. Well played, sir, well played. Krawitz last seen crying in boy's locker room.