On Monday’s “Ronan Farrow Daily” on MSNBC, Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer made an appearance first to point out that Elizabeth Lauten, a former staffer for Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN) that made some ill-advised comments about President Barack Obama’s two daughters, was “out of bounds.”
“Look, I don’t know,” Spicer said. “But I think it’s unbelievably poor judgment as you said. I think children should be off limits, especially the first daughters. I can’t imagine the stress they’re under every day. We have no idea the conversations that occur before and after with their parents. They should not be brought into the political discourse because of the job their father ran for and was elected to. I think the comments were inappropriate and insensitive. I think sometimes it’s a question within a workplace was one case of bad judgment or is this a pattern or something? So it’s not for me to judge whether she kept her job or not, but I do think she should strongly be condemned. She clearly apologized for it. It was appropriate. So, that’s where I think it stands.”
Spicer went on to clarify why some family members should be off limits. However, he also condemned the media for piling on this story, whereas had it been an actual elected official, it would have gotten a pass.
“People who are dragged into this process, and with that I mean spouses and family members, they really should be off limits,” Spicer added. “They should be able to have a can grow up or live their life independently of that. And to the extent they are brought in, like being president or vice president where you are brought in a way that no one else – it is a very, very tough to then have to live. To the extent that they don’t do anything public, they break a law or do something like that. They shouldn’t be touched. With that being said, Ronan, and I will say and I know you said in the examples of the other first family, and I think for me though, this issue is much broader. Look, there is no question that the comments that this individual congressional staffer made were highly out of bounds. With that being said, I have been in the job for four years and have been doing it for about 20 years – a Republican mid-level staffer does something out of bounds – it becomes a national issue that gets played over on television. It’s the third story on the ‘Today’ show. When elected officials and democrats do something, it gets brushed aside.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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