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Mayor Lashes Out Against Arizona Shooter, Drops F-Bomb on Facebook

by Amar Toor on January 20, 2011 at 04:20 PM

mayor mark chiltonIn the wake of this month's Arizona shootings, President Obama called upon all of us to raise the level of our political discourse and to avoid "pointing fingers or assigning blame" at a time that demanded unity. His message was pretty clear, and largely well received. But it seems to have flown directly over the head of one mayor in North Carolina.

Mark Chilton, mayor of Carrboro, North Carolina, recently urged his fellow councilmen to draft a statement in condemnation of the recent shootings in Arizona, and to come up with a resolution to engage in more civilized political debate. His proposal won approval from the board, but, somewhere along the way, Chilton decided to go on his Facebook page, where he vented his personal frustration about the heinous acts committed in Tuscon by accused shooter Jared Loughner earlier this month.

"Shooter, you probably think you did this for your country, but like Timothy McVeigh you are America's worst enemy," the post reads. "You don't deserve the kind of civilized trial and punishment that you will end up with. F**k you." Chilton reportedly has some 900 friends on Facebook, but a search for his page only turns up this largely inactive forum. Somehow, though, the mayor's post found a large audience, and soon raised the ire of many in the area, who questioned whether or not a public figure should be dropping F-bombs at a time that calls for more positive political leadership.

Chilton, however, is standing by his words. "I don't think there's anything wrong with expressing my gut reaction to such a turn of events," Chilton told the Chapel Hill News. "I think Loughner ought to get a fair trial like anybody, but that's different from what he deserves." He later added that he wasn't speaking "as a mayor" when he wrote the post, but "as a human being."

There's certainly nothing wrong with a politician acting like a human being, but an official Facebook page isn't exactly a personal blog, either. Granted, there probably aren't a whole lot of Loughner supporters out there, and we're guessing that there are plenty of others who'd like to see him skip his trial and go straight to Guantanamo. But is there really any point in raking him over the coals? It certainly won't spark any thoughtful debate, and it probably won't reassure Chilton's constituents, either. Appealing to the lowest common denominator may win the mayor a handful of political points and some newfound attention, but it won't do much else.

Tags: arizona, ArizonaShooting, discourse, facebook, GabrielleGiffords, JaredLoughner, MarkChilton, mayor, NorthCarolina, obama, politics, shooter, SocialNetworking, top, violence

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