Occasionally you come upon a story that asks you to take the bait. You read a teaser and you know you should let it go, but something inside tells you to scratch that itch. The parents from the Uvalde shooting were in Washington trying to get something done on gun control. They were handing out pins. When it came to handing one to Lauren Boebert you could probably have predicted how well that would go.

There are any number of reasons why this story shouldn’t be told. The first and best reason is that this is exactly what she wants. She wants to be the center of attention. She wants a majority of the country to think she is a despicable person. It’s what trolls do. The second reason is that we know she would never vote for gun control anyway, so it really doesn’t impact our day to day lives any. It is just an excuse to become more aggrivated and upset. I wanted to throw out these two caveats before giving her exactly what she wants.

The parents of Maite Rodriguez made lapel pins of their daughter’s shoe for lawmakers to wear to honor her memory and urge them to act on her behalf and provided pamphlets asking lawmakers to act. As the story went, that was the only way they could identify her in the aftermath. Let’s be fair here. This is an obvious manipulation. Wearing the pin means you support common sense gun legislation. If you don’t and you still wear the pin then you are just being a liar to score cheap political points. What she should have done is graciously accept the pin, simply not wear it, and then discard it in her office or home.

Boebert can be clearly seen in video throwing the pin away within eyeshot of the families that were there. What she should do is be respectful of them. It’s a basic lesson we were all taught growing up. All of us have received gifts that were just hideous. We had the presence of mind and manners to say thank you and wait until we got home to discard the item.

It’s at this point where we have to move to idle speculation. Maybe Boebert wasn’t taught that growing up. We know she dropped out of school because she became a teenage mom. We know the hot water her husband and her got into earlier in life. We know her son impregnated a girl that she would only say “is older than 14.” Given all this, it is fair to ask what manners she was taught. When we consider her academic record it is also fair to say that she could have been taught but she just didn’t learn.

On the other hand, this may not be a question of manners. It may be a question of performance art. Socrates called himself a “gadfly” in Plato’s Republic and in other assorted works that described his life and work. Gadfly seems to highbrow for Boebert. We could instead call her an ass. In that world, whoever can say or do the most outlandish thing wins. Congratulations Lauren, you’ve won that label for today.