Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Saturday suddenly went bonkers over the popular Twitter account Room Rater for being “partisan,” and apparently largely responsible for the yawning divide in America, and maybe even for the looming end of Western civilization.
Room Rater — @ratemyskyperoom — ranks the rooms politicians, media figures and others appear in on Zoom or Skype for interviews during the pandemic.
Bush, the younger brother of former President George W. Bush, suddenly got it into his head that Room Rater is hard on Republican rooms and softer on Democratic settings. Well, yeah.
Room Rater was launched in April by Claude Taylor, who chairs the anti-Donald Trump Mad Dog PAC. But it’s difficult to shoehorn political commentary into notes about background pillows and jammed bookshelves (tho an appearance by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos earned a zero because she was “soulless and aloof”).
Bush was particularly annoyed that Republican strategist and CNN political commentator Doug Heye only got a 9 out of a maximum rating of 10 for his room in a CNN appearance.
“Mr. Room Rater, is it possible now that the election is over to rate rooms on a non partisan basis?” Bush demanded in a tweet. “Are you a room rater or a hyper partisan person that is the problem? We need less hyper partisanship on backgrounds at this time for our country.”
Heye stood up for Room Rater, pointing out he was quite pleased with his 9.
Room Rater pointed out in a tweet to Bush that a 9 is not too shabby. In addition, after Bush referred to “Mr. Room Rater,” the tweet noted that the “Canadian half of Room Rater identifies as she/her.” After being corrected, Bush referred to “Room man.” How’s that for being partisan?
Maybe Bush was goofing, but Twitter critics took him seriously.
Multitudes on Twitter pointed out to Bush that he was missing the whole point of who is responsible for ripping apart the nation just now — and it is definitely not Room Rater. Even Robyn Patterson, national press secretary of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, piled on.
