Asshat of the Week.

The White House May Have Absolved You, Pete Sessions. But You Should Still Shut Up.

Dear Rep. Pete Sessions,

How's it going in your world today? Pretty well, we imagine, considering you've been officially absolved of telling President Obama “I cannot even stand to look at you” during a meeting held in hopes of ending the government shutdown.

You're surely riding pretty high, now that you've got the best of both worlds. According to the White House, you never said it, so no one can use it against you in a campaign. And, because liberal outlets like The Huffington Post and Salon claimed that you did, you can crow even more about the “liberal media” and its obvious bias against you.

That's pretty cool for you, we guess. We heard you're about to face a primary challenge from a Tea Party candidate, too, so it probably doesn't hurt that some of your most right-leaning constituents may believe you actually did say something that disrespectful to the president — because, in their eyes, everything coming out of the White House must be a lie.

So, with all that going for you, you may be wondering: Why am I Central Track's “Asshat of the Week” this week? Well, it's pretty clear, by your own admission, that you probably didn't behave in a way befitting a congressperson in that meeting. After the meeting was over, you told CNN that you had “clashed” with President Obama and that “if you focus on things that might be clashing, those will probably be in a book someday.” Awkward sentence structure aside, this is quite a troubling admission.

But, regardless of the exact words you used, we're sure many of your Dallas constituents aren't thrilled about you verbally sparring with the freely-elected leader of the United States. You got about 150,000 votes in 2012, which isn't bad. But the president got over 65 million. Having an adversarial relationship with the guy is really just not a good look — especially when he won Dallas County by 16 points.

Alas, Mr. Sessions, it looks like we’re going to be stuck with each other for a long time because of the ridiculously gerrymandered congressional district you were handed in 2010. Mitt Romney may have won your district, but when you're in the media, it reflects on the whole city, not just the narrow swath you represent.

With that in mind, here's some perspective for you: It's really not that cool for us to continually hear about that Dallas congressman who can't stop saying ridiculous things.

So, please, for all of our sakes: Tone down the rhetoric.

It'll be better for all of us in the end.

Regards,
Stephen Young and the rest of the Central Track Staff