Dum Pendebat Filius

The GOP is keepin’ it real in Campaign 2008, that’s for sure. First Sarah Palin says that small towns are “the real America… the pro-America areas of this great nation,” then looney-tunes Rep. Michele Bachmann (R – MN) calls for a media investigation to root out “anti-American” members of Congress; finally, Rep. Robin Hayes (R – NC) told a crowd that “liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God.”

According to the Washington Post article I linked to above, Sarah Palin has sort of apologized for her “real America” remarks:

In an interview on CNN, Palin said comments she made last week in North Carolina praising small towns as “the real America” and the “pro-America areas of this great nation” were not intended to suggest that other parts of the country are less patriotic or less American.

“If that’s the way it has come across, I apologize,” she told CNN’s Drew Griffin.

She’s sorry if that’s the way it came across. If you can tell me any other way her comments could have “come across,” you da man. Here are her exact words:

“We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe” — here the audience interrupted Palin with applause and cheers — “We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.

“This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom.”

You tell me, readers, how those words could be interpreted in such a way as not to imply that some parts of America are “real” and others are not; that some parts of America are “pro-America” and others are not.

Still, even a left-handed apology such as “sorry if that’s how it came across” is better than no apology at all, I guess. In this age of the non-apology apology, we can’t expect much better.

Rep. Bachmann is up for re-election, and her Hardball appearance backfired on her: her opponent has raised over a million dollars since she made those idiotic remarks on TV. (If you want to help defeat her, readers, you can make a contribution of your own at ActBlue. It was the best $25 I spent all week.)

Pathetic Rep. Hayes initially tried to deny that he’d said “liberals hate real Americans,” but he had to fess up when faced with audio evidence. His excuse, amazingly, is that he “actually was trying to work to keep the crowd as respectful as possible.” How he figured saying “liberals hate real Americans” was going to keep things “respectful” is anybody’s guess, readers.