Editorial: GOP convention taps the McCloskeys to speak. A celebration of recklessness.

 https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-gop-convention-taps-the-mccloskeys-to-speak-a-celebration-of-recklessness/article_78eafd54-5c7f-5ae8-bec9-a1f6226d377b.html

 No, it’s not the setup of a Saturday Night Live skit. Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who recklessly waved guns at protesters marching past their home in June, are actually slated to speak at the Republican National Convention next week. What does it say about today’s GOP that leaders would elevate this couple as representative of Republican values?

The McCloskeys are the personal-injury lawyer couple who stood barefoot outside their gated-street Central West End home brandishing firearms as protesters walked by en route to Mayor Lyda Krewson’s house. He cradled a semi-automatic rifle; she held a small handgun. Their muzzle awareness was so sloppy, they pointed their guns at times directly at the crowd or at each other.

 Our anti-showboating stance applies equally to the McCloskeys, who no one should mistake as role models. As the Post-Dispatch has reported, these confrontation junkies have sued neighbors, employers, tenants, their own relatives. They’ve sued their neighborhood trustees because, neighbors allege, they wanted to bar gay couples. Mark McCloskey once destroyed a beehive placed near his home by Jewish school children as part of their curriculum, leaving a note threatening to sue. “The children were crying in school,” a rabbi told the Post-Dispatch.