GOP staffer who criticized the Obama girls resigns

Dec 1, 2014

Elizabeth Lauten, the communications director for Republican Tennessee Congressman Stephen Fincher, has told NBC News that she is resigning after verbally attacking Sasha and Malia Obama.

Last week, Lauten criticized the president’s daughters in a Facebook post for their appearance during the White House turkey pardon ceremony. She told the teens to “try showing a little class” and to “dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar.”

The mean-spirited post defied an unspoken but well-known rule that presidents’ children are off limits for criticism, especially when they are underaged. Criticism of her statement came swiftly, and she later took to Facebook to offer up her mea culpa.

In her apology, she posted, “I quickly judged the two young ladies in a way that I would never have wanted to be judged myself as a teenager.”

But that sentiment seemed to do little to quell the backlash, and on Monday, NBC News reporter Alex More revealed that Lauten will be “resigning today.”

https://twitter.com/AlexNBCNews/status/539423363090087936