Sam Brownback Panicks Over Teenaged Tweet

[cyranothe2nd]

The scene: A teenage girl in a high school group called Youth in Government uses her fancy new tweeting phone to exercise her constitutionally-protected right to call a governor a butthead. (Or, to be more specific, to say that he "sucked" and to create the hashtag #heblowsalot.) Her perceptive abilities proved accurate, when said Gov. Sam

Comments

[sarahsayssoo]

I promise every politician at his level and many below it have someone monitoring social media mentions. It's completely normal. Engaging with people mentioning you is not suggested though. I wonder, and really seriously doubt, that he knew what his staffer was doing when they contacted the program.

[beuk]

yyyyyyyyyep.

[aviv_b]

You got it. I think PR people often spend as much time monitoring what's out there in cyberspace as actually promoting a positive image for their clients.

[brookiki]

This. Why do so many people act like that's the shocking and horrifying part of this story?

[dreammeanyway]

Seriously. When I was a politico I monitored social media, Google alerts, etc. You keep an eye on public opinion.

[lirren]

Exactly what I was going to say. The staffer probably took action without ever saying a word to him, and no doubt will be seriously called on the carpet over the whole thing now that it's gotten so huge. He still sucks, but for his record rather than for blowing the whistle on a Tweet.