The Opposite of Southern Hospitality

Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner at Washington Hilton on April 28, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Virginia is a special place, home of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, birthplace of the nation really. And Lexington is a special little town, home of VMI. Stonewall Jackson lived there and taught both mathematics at VMI and the Bible at a black Sunday School he founded himself and where he promoted black literacy in defiance of state law. Robert E. Lee also lived there, serving as president of Washington College, now Washington and Lee.

Al Perrotta is justifiably indignant that a transplanted Yankee (the kind of specimen that old Ben Hardaway, long-time Master of the Midland Hunt, used to complain about: Northern migrants who “perch in our trees and shit on our ground”) made Lexington the focus of a national news story by refusing service to the President’s press secretary. This kind of behavior is un-Southern, and especially un-Virginian.

Imagine. You’ve had a rough week at the office. You’ve had a pressure-packed month that had you traveling halfway across the world for meetings that could decide the fate of millions. Your return has brought no rest. Every day you still have to stand in front of a bunch of people screaming the same questions at you — loaded questions, rude questions, “Let’s see if I can get trending on Twitter” questions. Questions where one wrong word from you can send markets crashing, foreign leaders vexing, to say nothing of sending talking heads into a frenzy. And you have to take this daily barrage with supernatural control and restraint, despite being genetically wired to be a wise-cracker.

Finally, it’s Friday. TGIF! Escape! You head out I-66 with the job and the nation’s Capitol in your rear view mirror. You head south down I-81. Way south. With each mile you lose the stench of the Swamp, the weight of your responsibility, the burden of a boss who works 17 hours a day and rarely on script. Up ahead is a nice dinner with some friends, a couple’s night.

You arrive in a quaint town tucked in the Shenandoah Mountains. A haven. You sit down at your table. You breathe. Perhaps for the first time in a month, you breathe.

The owner comes over. Not to say hi. Not even to discuss the night’s specials. She’s there to throw you out. Throw your whole party out. (literally and figuratively). Why? Because she hates your boss, and by extension hates you.

What happened to Sarah Sanders Friday night at the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia is an abomination. It is a violation of all standards of decency and hospitality. Worse, it is the latest vile display of the unrepentant and unhinged spirit that says “Those I disagree with politically I must destroy.” (Actually, not the latest. Florida’s Attorney General got verbally assaulted inside a screening of the new Mr. Rogers documentary Saturday. It’s an ugly day in the neighborhood.)

What’s going on is nothing short of demonic.

RTWT