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The GOP's press release on Facebook is doubly surprising not only for its failure to heed the party's style guidelines urging an immoderate and belligerent tone, but because the appearance on social media of anything cogent is a rare event.
The Utah Republican Party sent out press release today honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—and, in an unusual move, neglected to include the overblown claims and unhinged rhetoric usually associated with the organization's communiqués.
"Today we honor a man who fought fearlessly and tirelessly for the civil rights of all human beings everywhere," read the incongruously rational memo. "His focus was not the color of a person’s skin but rather, the content of their character. His mission was simple – human rights for all and the betterment of mankind," it continued, with a surprisingly low number of grammar and structure errors.
The press release—which was also
posted to the party's Facebook page accompanied by a photo of King shaking the hand of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a Democrat—is signed, as usual, by Utah Republican Party Chairman James Evans, apparently the very same James Evans who applies his name to the party's other media blasts. Most shocking was the omission of any bizzare claims such as that, if King were alive today, he'd be a Republican.
Many theories are circulating as to the cause of this abrupt shift in tone and temperament. Could somebody working deep in the bowels of the party's offices be suffering a brain tumor? Or was an alien abduction involved?
These and other questions raised by the discovery of such a preposterously level-headed Republican press release are currently under investigation.