Out West, A Long-Awaited Upbraiding Of Three American Bigots...Brewer, Kyl & McCain Taste Civility...It Goes On...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - Jan Brewer looked lost, like a sour politician witnessing something good and inspirational. The governor of the sick state of Arizona had no choice; she had to attend last night's memorial in Tucson, a memorial for the half-dozen victims and a handful of others who fell in a hail of bullets that still has Arizona Congresswoman fighting for her life.

Brewer, cartoonized above, has spent the last two years spreaidng hate in her state. The Republican governor ballyhooed SB 1070 all of last year, legislation aimed at Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants. Residents of that ethnic fold blasted her to no avail. Brewer, a Republican, held hard to policies that targeted all Hispanics in the name of what she labeled the fight against illegal immigration.

Last night, she sat on a chair in the front row of the stage at the McKale Center on the campus of the University of Arizona. Before her came a Hispanic professor of the school to give the evening's blessing in his ancestral Yaqui fashion. At all turns, Brewer looked ill-at-ease while listening to Dr. Carlos Gonzalez deliver his blessing in a distinctively Hispanic fashion. And then she sat stoically as shooting hero Daniel Hernandez (shown in photo above with Congresswoman Giffords)  offered a few words about his role in the saving of Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords from dying at the scene outside a Safeway grocery store public function last Saturday. Hernandez, an intern volunteering with Giffords' local office, rushed to her side and applied pressure to a head wound, stemming blood loss. The man who followed him a bit later, President Barack Obama, openly called young Hernandez a hero, much to the delight of a throng 12,000 strong.

The Republican governor, not known for showing a pleasant face, applauded as best she could, perhaps wondering how her sympathy would be playing with the heartless right-wing zealots she represents, and how perhaps right-wing hardass Republican U.S. Senators Jon Kyle and John McCain seated nearby would react. Kyle, seat behind Hernandez, looked as if he would rather have been attending a KKK rally, and McCain as if he'd stumbled into something weird and unpleasant.

Not far from them sat the parents of 9-year-old Christina Taylor-Green, a young girl murdered by accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner. Also seated near the stage were Giffords's grieving husband and the families of other victims. In scenes that gripped viewers, hugs spread across the room, showing the president and U.S. Attorney Genreral Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, expressing their sentiments to those affected. Nowhere were Brewer, Kyle or McCain to be seen - perhaps feeling a bit of the criticism aimed at the Republicans for their embrace of hateful political rhetoric.

In the end, it was that scene that sailed out after the memorial, the president being applauded and Brewer, Kyle and McCain slinking off into the night. America is battling through its Era of Stupid Politics, a time history will define as the long-lingering moment the country attacked and stabbed itself repeatedly. It won't end anytime soon. Too many egos around. Too many politicians interested in dividing and too many politicians interested in themselves and their kind. It'll all shake out, however; it always does.

But, for one night, it was good to see the likes of Jan Brewer, Jon Kyl and John McCain look like morons...

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