RepublicanPeople who have known her say Elizabeth Lauten was always a goodie-two-shoes overachiever with a mediocre, inside-the-box mind; she still lists her 1580 SAT score from 2000 on her LinkedIn page-- along with the fact that she's been a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution since 2013. Before thrusting her racist ass onto the national stage last week with a typically nasty KKK Thanksgiving Facebook post about the president's two teenage daughters, North Carolina native Elizabeth Lauten was probably best known for her insipid reviews of episodes of The Bachelor and Miss Universe pageants for AskMissA, a magazine for white girls with pimples that she was entertainment editor of last year. Inside the GOP Beltway, though, the sharp-tongued Lauten, who had been arrested for shoplifting in a mall when she was a teen-- and had quite the reputation among Camp LeJeune marines in her hometown-- was the vicious voice behind Joe Walsh's psychotic press releases. Before she came to work for the grotesquely hypocritical Farmer Fincher, she was Walsh's press secretary. From her LinkedIn page:
Press Secretary U.S. House of Representatives - Rep. Joe Walsh (IL-08) January 2011-- August 2011 (8 months) Washington D.C. Metro Area • Aggressive media outreach to secure interviews with publications and radio, as well as television appearances • Executed extensive day-to-day on-the-record and background communication with national and local reporters • Coordinated district communications outreach including direct/franked mailings and e-newsletters • Develop tactical messaging strategies to respond to a variety of issues related to public policy including the composition of talking points, opinion pieces and interview preparation materials • Managed Congressman’s social media accounts, including updating status and responding to messages - Second largest Facebook following in the freshman class of the 112th Congress- Ranked in top five most affective political Twitter accounts of the 112th Congress • Produced elaborate YouTube videos including filming and editing
Even though she's an employee of a congressional office-- albeit Fincher's-- and gets paid by the taxpayers, she has her own one-person lobbying and communications shop, Audeamus Communications, she runs simultaneously. She boasts of her self-declared skills in crisis communication and management: "Extensive experience, rapid response and excellent media relations skills have made Audeamus Comms’ crisis management practice a paradigm for the industry. We will work around-the-clock, if necessary, to craft strategy, draft the appropriate language and contact the media. We are acutely aware that unanswered 'bad' news-- whether true or false-- can inflict long-term damage in a very short time on an organization’s image or an individual’s character. We are highly skilled in quickly identifying the salient points that must be addressed and in determining the manner of delivery most likely to counter the crisis at hand. By disseminating the correct message to key journalists, we are able to help significantly reduce the intensity of a crisis so that an organization may return as swiftly as possible to its day-to-day business operations." All those "best-in-class" state of the art skills she incongruously claims to be the master of, were put to the test this week, not on behalf of Farmer Fincher, the RNC-- she claims she "was responsible for day-to-day management and online political strategy development for the Committee, completing national interactive strategies using email, Facebook, Twitter and other channels"-- or ex-Congressman Joe Walsh. Today the boastful claims she makes about her mastery of social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, are a smoldering wreck. Her social media sites are either all deleted or privatized. And, career-wise, she is toxic. Forbes' Elisa Doucette decided not to waste time on dissecting Louten's motivations for the ugly racist rant on Facebook. "I think we can all agree that when you write about a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old, calling them classless and telling them they look like they belong in a bar, you are simply not being a nice person," she wrote. She covered the crisis management state of the art non-apology apology instead.
IT WAS NOT AN APOLOGY I get it. This is the internet. We’re all fast and furious at our keyboards, with the sinfully seductive appeal of immediately publishing our innermost thoughts for the world. We say things we regret. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but as soon as the trolls come screaming at your back door, you know you have done something you are going to have to be held accountable for. When we do this, there is one simple statement that each and every prepared statement MUST include: I’m sorry. Not the “I’m sorry” Lauten stated at the end, to those she has hurt and offended. First and foremost, to honestly offer an apology, one needs to suck up their ego and political leanings and any other baggage they are carrying. Secondly, an apology needs to acknowledge the person (or people) who really deserves to hear the apology, and address them directly. How does this change Lauten’s statement? Simple. Instead of apologizing for a post about Malia and Sasha Obama, Lauten needs to treat them like they are human beings deserving of her compassion and respect, rather than puppets to dance around in political battles. Her previous statement:I wanted to take a moment and apologize for a post I made on Facebook earlier today judging Sasha and Malia Obama at the annual White House turkey pardoning ceremony: When I first posted on Facebook I reacted to an article and I quickly judged the two young ladies in a way that I would never have wanted to be judged myself as a teenager. After many hours of prayer, talking to my parents, and re-reading my words online I can see more clearly just how hurtful my words were. Please know, those judgmental feelings truly have no place in my heart. Furthermore, I’d like to apologize to all of those who I have hurt and offended with my words, and I pledge to learn and grow (and I assure you I have) from this experience.A better apology:
I wanted to take a moment and apologize to Sasha and Malia Obama for a post I made on Facebook earlier today judging them at the annual White House turkey pardoning ceremony: When I first posted on Facebook I reacted to an article and I quickly judged the two young ladies in a way that I would never have wanted to be judged myself as a teenager. After many hours of prayer, talking to my parents, and re-reading my words online I can see more clearly just how hurtful my words were. Please know, those judgmental feelings truly have no place in my heart. Furthermore, I’d like to apologize to all of those who I have hurt and offended with my words, and I pledge to learn and grow (and I assure you I have) from this experience.All the same words. Rearranged. The first apology is what people who have been caught say. It carries this hard-to-shake implication that you are not REALLY sorry you did it, you are instead sorry that people are outraged by it. The second apology is what people who truly feel badly about what they have said or done say. It carries the personal connection to say “I am a person, you are a person. In this situation I didn’t treat you as an equal, and that is not ok.” Granted, the chances that Lauten knows the Obama sisters and chats with them frequently is unlikely. Yet if she is willing to “call them out” on the internet like she would a friend in a bar bathroom, she needs to extend the same familiar tone in her apology. The second apology still has its many flaws, including apologizing to those you have hurt and offended-- again, implying she is not sorry she said it, but instead sorry that people are hurt and offended. Like those judgmental feelings MIGHT still have a place in her heart, she just won’t share them so publicly in the future if people are going to be so cranky about it. ...Treat the people you are apologizing to as if they are actual people, not pixels on a page. Say I’m sorry directly to them, acknowledge it was poor behavior, and promise to be better next time. Then, make sure you do just that.
I bet the Bible thumpin', holier-than-thou, food-stamp cutting, corporate welfare-taking Fincher (R-TN) doesn't fire her tomorrow. Looks like her colleagues at AskMissA felt her vile attitude was a detriment to the magazine's charitable efforts:UPDATE: DING DONGI was wrong; Fincher pushed her out this morning. He has enough problems without this albatross around his neck. Let's see which clueless Republican hires her next.
