'Toddler who found a pistol': Tommy Tuberville roasted by Alabama columnist for costing state jobs

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) was called out this week by Alabama columnist Kyle Whitmire after his antics cost his home state the opportunity to be the new headquarters of America's Space Command.

In his latest column, Whitmire described Tuberville as a "a toddler who found a pistol on the nightstand" and fired it off indiscriminately when he decided to place a hold on military promotions to protest the United States Armed Forces' abortion policies.

This decision, argues Whitmire, gave President Joe Biden the opportunity to rescind the Space Command's planned move from Colorado to Alabama, and he argued that Tuberville has so alienated American military personnel that they were unwilling to go to bat for his state and press Biden to stick with the original plan.

"What Biden needed was a veneer of plausibility," writes Whitmore. "He needed a general to say this was the right thing to do. And what Alabama needed was military brass to say, 'No, Mr. President, Colorado is not the best place for this. We did a study and...' But who’s going to do that when Alabama’s senior senator is being a jerk to the very folks Alabama needed on our side? In the end, the Associated Press reported, it was General James Dickinson, the head of Space Command, who persuaded the president that Colorado was the best choice."

Whitmire also takes aim at other elected officials in Alabama for not having the gumption to tell Tuberville to end his self-defeating blockade, as he said they should recognize that the senator is simply not someone who should be trusted to handle such matters without adult supervision.

And in a parting shot, he blamed voters in Alabama for electing Tuberville in the first place.

"We put the toddler in the room with the loose gun, and now we caught a bullet in the groin," he wrote. "This one’s on us."