With a little hurt from her friends

The O ran a hit piece on Betsy Johnson the other day. One of her staffers had posted a long string of offensive statements on Twitter and on a blog. According to the O, they were "hateful views online toward Black, Muslim and LGBTQ people." The bill of particulars was as follows:

Pamela Fitzsimmons... repeatedly referred to Black people as criminals, railed against the Black Lives Matter movement, said Black civil rights organizations needed segregation and hate crimes for their survival, questioned whether a Black man wanted to be shot by police for publicity, called LGBTQ rights activists “bullies,” said transgender individuals who share their stories were attention-seeking and wrote that the U.S. Constitution “might be a lot worse” if Muslims had participated in its writing. 

These revelations came on the heels of expressions of outrage by Johnson's opponent, Tina Kotek, over the fact that one or more of the attendees at a Johnson campaign event out in the sticks were wearing T-shirts with Confederate flags on them.

Johnson responded that Fitzsimmons's views were Fitzsimmons's alone, and she went on to condemn all symbols of racism, including the Confederate flag. But the candidate's responses weren't fast and furious enough to silence her most ardent critics on the blue side.  

Johnson was a lot more forceful in denouncing what she sees as guilt by association. "This is ridiculous," she fumed when the Confederate flag flap unfurled. "An OPB reporter seeing one guy in a t-shirt at a rally doesn't say anything about everybody else who was there." And to the O, she huffed: "Trying to attack me using someone else’s views or actions is gutter-dwelling politics. As I have stated previously, I am absolutely against all forms of bigotry and intolerance, and that includes the Confederate flag on T-shirts and people’s personal blog posts."

The weak hits on her seem unlikely to change many minds. They may even backfire. But wait a month or so for the barrage of well-timed bazooka shots that you just know are coming from Willamette Weed. The professional assassins over there will make these most recent attacks seem like love taps.