You probably weren’t aware of this, but conservatives have uncovered a little-known but extremely useful political theory that explains every problem in American politics, from rising health care costs to the problems in the Middle East and even police brutality:
It’s Obama’s fault. Still.
Take the case of Wyoming state senator and Elmer Fudd look-alike Anthony Bouchard. The lawmaker recently attended the Shepard Symposium on Social Justice at the University of Wyoming—a forum named after Matthew Shepard, the gay man murdered in Laramie, Wyo., in 1998. According to the Casper Star-Tribune, Bouchard sat in on a presentation about concealed-carry legislation given by three black students who argued that the laws needed to be toughened. Citing the killing of Trayvon Martin and others, they proposed stricter requirements for carrying firearms and said that many African Americans are killed because gun carriers stereotype young black men as thugs.
“‘Be smart before you stop a heart,’ that was our slogan,” said Desmin Lewis—one of the students who created the presentation.
Bouchard, a Republican who ran the Wyoming Gun Owners Association before becoming a state senator, disagreed with the presentation and voiced his opposition to the students. “He kind of switched it up,” said Tyrell Proby, another student involved with the presentation. Instead of discussing their project, they said, the legislator wanted to talk about guns. But Bouchard didn’t stop there.
According to the Tribune, the two students said that Bouchard then threatened to fire the professor whose class their presentation was prepared for, as well as cut funding for a program they’re in, Synergy, which offers tutoring, small class sizes and mentoring for first-year students at the school.
Bouchard, of course, had a different version of the story. He insists that the instructor refused to reveal her name and the title of the course, and when she refused, he told her, “I vote on funding for this school and I think I should know what I should vote against.”
No, that doesn’t sound threatening at all.
When asked about the incident, Bouchard admitted that he brought up his votes on funding, but denied that he threatened the teacher, taking a page from the President Pumpkin-Skin’s book of insults: “Never said that,” said Bouchard. “Fake news.”
He went on to blame the entire incident on ... you guessed it: Barack Obama: “It just seems like since Obama started the race-baiting, it just never ends,” according to KGAB.
Bouchard has made his stance as a strict Second Amendment advocate very clear during his freshman term as a Wyoming state senator. He previously supported a law to allow teachers to carry guns in K-12 schools after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., and he sponsored a bill to ease gun restrictions. In Wyoming, the only requirements for carrying a concealed weapon is a federal background check and a gun-safety course.
University of Wyoming administration said it is looking into the incident.
Obama was not available for comment.
Read more at the Casper Star-Tribune and KGAB.