Grand Ol' Pricks

The Republican National Committee is threatening to sue internet custom apparel and gift vendor CafePress for hosting an online venue for their clients to hawk GOP-related regalia like t-shirts, stickers and portrayals of elephants.

The committee owns the trademarks to "GOP," "Grand Old Party," "Republican National Committee," "RNC" and the official GOP elephant logo, and God forbid anybody use it in a satirical or critical way. Especially if they make money from it.

Sean Cairncross, the party's chief counsel and by association a douche, wrote the online vendor that the GOP "takes infringements upon its trademarks seriously." Yeah, and where's the letter from Satan demanding royalties form the Republican party's nearly eight year evil streak? "Please cease and desist from allowing vendors to utilize the federally registered trademarks of the RNC or we will be forced to consider a legal remedy," Cairncross wrote CafePress. I have a legal remedy - still your C&D up your ass.

CafePress attorney Paul Alan Levy, of Public Citizen, noted Thursday that some uses of the party's trademarks are critical of the GOP, but many are not. "The majority of the images over which the RNC has threatened to sue reflect positive opinions about Republicans," he said. "Several designs simply put the elephant logo on a T-shirt, so that the wearer can walk around bragging about his or her adherence to Republicanism." Others, Levy pointed out, "make highly favorable comments on Republicanism, such as a design portraying a larger elephant trailed by two smaller elephants and the words, 'I'm raising my children right.'"

Oops! They're going to stamp out positive associations to their party too? Abort? If they let it go it's to avoid a hypocritical stance, and if they try to enforce it it would be a pyrrhic victory. And what if your name is George Orson Parker? Can you not have a shirt with your initials on it? Pro or con for their representation, I believe there's a freedom of speech component that is circumventing whatever trademark they think they have.

Republicans doing something even when the consequences are unfavorable just to follow through on their path of righteousness - doesn't sound like them, does it?