A Republican lawmaker from Arkansas upset both Bostonians and non-Bostonians from both sides of the aisle this morning after he felt the need to tweet a pro-gun message around the time two armed police officers were being shot in their pursuit of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
He later pulled the tweet and “apologized,” as seen above … though his apology is for timing rather than content (which, apparently, he thinks is still totally appropriate). He also included this observation:
“I don’t regret the content as much as I regret the timing,” Bell, R-Mena, told The Associated Press. “I really didn’t think about it going to Boston and was generally expressing my personal view of how I would have felt in that situation myself.”
[…]
“I was basically just expressing my frustration, I guess, if I had been a person who was living there last night and my elected officials had prevented me from being able to defend myself and my family,” Bell told the AP. “I would have felt pretty powerless and wanted to express that.”
A better apology would have been much shorter and to the point, “I am extremely sorry for expressing what can only be called a ghastly opinion at what can only be called the worst possible time. Next week, I’ll go back to expressing my various ghastly opinions and I’m pretty sure none of you will notice since you didn’t really seem to notice before.”
“The B’s lost and I just said it,” said one Western Massachusetts Bruins fan who called Ward a racial slur in a tweet. “The fact is, I’m not a racist. It was stupid of me. I would apologize to Joel Ward if I could.”
(via)
This is the former editor-in-chief’s apology:
In the last few days I have been rightly criticized for publishing a satirical “April Fools” newspaper that mocked sexual assault at a time when Boston University is working hard to expunge the rape culture that pervades our campus. I apologized, I made amends with BU student groups, and I resigned as editor-in-chief of The Daily Free Press, the independent student newspaper that I have come to love and respect over the past two years.
Yet still The FreeP, as we lovingly call it, and I were continuously criticized and harassed for our mistake. I acknowledge the decision to print the issue was callous and, as my journalism professor told me, “pretty sophomoric.”
But, guess what? I’m a sophomore.
in response to this:
The editor of Boston University’s independent student newspaper stepped down Tuesday after an April Fools’ edition that appeared to mock rape and drug crimes.
Under the spoof banner “The Disney Free Press,” one story reported the arrests of “seven frat dwarves” for allegedly drugging and raping a female known as the “fairest of them all.”
More here.
