UT Austin College Republicans leader tweets assassinating Obama ‘tempting’
The president of the College Republicans at the University of Texas at Austin posted Wednesday on Twitter that the idea of assassinating President Obama was “tempting.”
“Y’all as tempting as it may be, don’t shoot Obama,” Lauren Pierce said. “We need him to go down in history as the WORST president we’ve EVER had! #2012.”
This tweet was posted at 2:29 p.m., a few hours after police arrested Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez for allegedly firing shots at the White House last Friday.
ABC News interviewed both Pierce and the vice president of the College Republicans about the controversial statement.
Pierce referred to her statement as a “joke” and called the earlier shooting incident “stupid.”
The statement was posted under Pierce’s personal account, not that of the College Republicans.
According to ABC News, Cassie Wright, the vice president of the College Republicans, said because the comment was voiced personally and not through the organization, she saw nothing wrong with it. She attributed the statement to utilizing freedom of speech.
“If it’s coming from her own personal Twitter, it’s reflective of her as a person, not the organization,” MU College Democrats President Matthew Tharp said. “I don’t think it’s smart, but I don’t think the organization should be held responsible for it.”
MU College Republicans President Craig Arnzen said there is no such thing as personal when one is a leader of an organization.
“If you represent a group, then you represent that group in every aspect of your life,” Arnzen said.
After attracting a large amount of scrutiny, Pierce removed her post later that day and tweeted an apology.
“I apologize for my previous tweet,” Pierce said. “It was in poor taste and should never have been written.”
The presidents of the MU College Democrats and MU College Republicans commented on the appropriateness of the statement.
“I think that it was the wrong thing for Lauren to tweet,” Arnzen said. “It’s the wrong thing for anyone to tweet. If you don’t like who’s in office, we’ve got an election coming up in a year.”
MU College Democrats president Matt Tharp upholds the stance made by the two organizations last year after the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
“Violence has no place in the realm of political discourse,” Tharp said. “We are free to disagree, and sometimes we’ll disagree very adamantly, but violence doesn’t solve anything.”