Hear the audio version here (segments older than 3 weeks may be unavailable)

UPDATE: Left wing national commentator Rachel Maddow's blog has expressed delight that Speaker Bosma joined in the mockery of a fellow conservative, calling it, "an amusing twist." Big thanks to Speaker Bosma for providing Maddow and her ilk such pleasure.

I have appreciated the leadership of Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma in the past, but this session has me concerned.  And I'm not the only one.  Besides killing the pro-life legislation that came from the Senate for no good reason, Bosma's most recent stunt is classic Republican: savage your own trying to puff yourself up and gain good media.  It really turns my stomach, honestly.

Several of you have perhaps heard of Indiana Representative Bob Morris of Fort Wayne, who took a strong stance against the Girl Scouts of America because of what he saw as their allegiance to left-wing causes, including Planned Parenthood and transvestite behavior.  Morris wrote an open letter to his colleagues as they were set to honor the organization.

Not surprisingly, the liberal media pounced all over Morris, even at a national level.  He became the perfect whipping boy: a Midwestern, hick conservative from Indiana, so paranoid about views outside his own backwards Christianity, he sees baby-killing transvestites in the Girl Scouts.  Morris has been pounded, and ripped, and humiliated and insulted.  He's been crucified for expressing the idea that it isn't beneficial to the youth in our society to encourage and accept cross-dressing as part of their behavior.

And at an hour when Morris needed support from his fellow conservatives, particularly a defense from his leadership that he has been repeatedly loyal to, here's what he gets from Bosma:

After controversial remarks by one Republican lawmaker attacking Girl Scouts as a radical group that supports abortion, House Speaker Brian Bosma made his feelings clear Tuesday, one Thin Mint cookie at a time.

 

Bosma, R-Indianapolis, pointedly offered Girl Scout cookies throughout the day and munched them as he presided over the House.

Classy.  Really classy.  Can you imagine for a second Pat Bauer humiliating one of his own caucus members like this?  Can you imagine Bauer seeing one of his fellow Democrats flailing and struggling and not only fail to circle the wagons, but publicly hurl them to the wolves?  Stop and think about the loyalty Bosma will now have from Morris going forward.  He just tanked it.  And maybe Bosma's thinking Morris won't be around much longer, but think about all the other Republicans sitting there watching this.

I, for one, can tell you that if I was a Republican member of the House, I would think much differently of Brian Bosma now.  I would be much more hesitant to trust him and believe he would have my back.  To me, this is an utter failure of leadership and I don't know how you can see it any other way.

Morris tried to quell the controversy by telling reporters the legislature has "other issues we need to move on to . . . so we can do the people's work."

 

Bosma clearly felt the same but also clearly wanted people to know he didn't share Morris' views.

At one point Tuesday, he told House colleagues he had "purchased 278 cases of Girl Scout cookies in the last 48 hours."

 

And when time came for the House to adjourn, he asked all lawmakers who had been Girl Scouts -- and seemingly every female legislator stood -- to give the daily motion to adjourn.

 

As he left the House, Bosma was dismissive of the controversy: "I've been to the carnival before, and you don't walk in to every sideshow tent."

That's an incredible statement to me because in this case, far from being dismissive of the sideshow, Bosma decided to pick up the megaphone and start barking for people to come and gawk.  He could have dismissed all of this by saying something as simple as, "Each of our members are entitled to their own ideas and beliefs.  I haven't done any research into the issue, so I can't speak to the details.  I can tell you that we don't have anything on the agenda today that relates to it, so I'm more than happy to talk about major pieces of legislation we're working on."  That would be leadership.  And more than that, it would be friendship.

Instead he made this self-serving, and I think horrible, horrible decision to join the liberal media and mock one of his own.  Really sad.