As police chief of Lake Crystal, Minnesota, Representative Tony Cornish is known to take prisoners. Unfortunately, this level of restraint doesn't seem to apply to his correspondence with his constituents.
The latest installment? In Rep. Tony Cornish not open to criticism, an LTE in the Mankato Free Press, Julie a. Anderson of Lake Crystal writes :
When we were just hours away from a possible government shutdown, I got an email from Rep. Cornish literally blaming the looming shutdown on Gov. Mark Dayton.
Of course, I wrote back, expressing my opinion of this one-sided attitude.
What do I get in response in my email? This answer: Have a great day genius!
How embarrassing it must be to be him.
Bluestem strongly suspects that Cornish is not embarassed by his own behavior, as difficult as it is for others to endure. Of course, Representative Cornish is an honorable man. We do not intend to prove otherwise.
The LTE is the latest iteration of the lawman turned lawmaker's peculiarly civil responses to constituents' emails. Back in May, The Daily What summed up some exchanges inThis Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day:
Minnesota’s Republican-led House of Representatives decided last night to follow up the controversial decision to allow anti-gay “nu-metal minister” Bradlee Dean’s to recite Friday’s opening prayer with a vote in favor of putting a constitutional same-sex marriage ban on the state’s 2012 ballot.
A concerned constituent named Stephanie decided to e-mail her state representative, Tony Cornish (R-Good Thunder), using a form letter found on the Human Rights Campaign website. She promptly received a rather blunt response: “Give it a rest!!!!!!!!!!” . . .
. . .Apparently Stephanie is not alone: Several others are reporting similar curt retorts from Cornish. “Emailed Rep. Tony Cornish via @HRC expressing disappointment,” tweeted Sommer Berg. “Response: ‘Cool off & try writing a sane letter.’ Nice.”
Nice work if you can get it. The best Bluestem can say about the situation is that Cornish is now rude on his own dime, having declined his legislative paycheck during the shutdown.
Photo: Representative Tony Cornish. Note to self: Bluestem needs to ask Tild to look into Tony's soul and come up with a stock image...
Tony Baloney is curled up with his mustache and boots on viewing and re-viewing his heavily worn copy of Broke Back Mountain. In fact he is so busy he has never answered any of my emails... so I'm feeling kind of neglected actually.
Jeff Wilfahrt, Rosemount, MN
Posted by: Jeff Wilfahrt | Jul 08, 2011 at 02:03 PM
I had no idea that Representative Cornish was a movie buff.
Posted by: Sally Jo Sorensen | Jul 08, 2011 at 02:15 PM
He just can't quit being nasty.
Posted by: PhoenixWomanMN | Jul 08, 2011 at 09:58 PM