EPA Aide Apologizes for ‘Crucify’ Comment Amid Republican Outcry

[alp227]

Source: Bloomberg

An Environmental Protection Agency official apologized today for a 2010 comment comparing the regulator to the Roman conquerers, which triggered a outcry this week when a video recording surfaced on the Internet.

(...)

The videotaped comment from a meeting in Dish, Texas, led Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, to say the comment showed President Barack Obama intended to shut down U.S. energy exploration.

Tension between Obama and U.S. energy producers has grown in the past year, as he delayed an oil pipeline from Canada and pushed to end $40 billion in tax breaks for the industry. The American Petroleum Institute has paid for commercials to oppose Obama’s tax proposals.

(...)

“It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean,” Armendariz said on the video. “They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-26/epa-aide-apologizes-for-crucify-comment-amid-republican-outcry.html

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Video courtesy of Sen. Inhofe's office. It's been making the rounds all over the right-wing sites.

[Zoeisright]

1. What, the widdle republicans had their widdle feelings hurt??

They say worse than that every single day and never apologize, the fuckers.

[eyewall]

2. I'm so sick of republican outcries.

They know it's phony outrage and they also know it has a serious effect on the public who believe what they say. It's just another form of useless political games from the party of obstruction but it can have dire consequences.

[Blue_Tires]

6. and I'm sick of our side always feeling the need to apologize

[eyewall]

10. yes, I am too.

[bluestateguy]

3. It is a sign of weakness if you give in to their demands for a forced apology.

Never do it.

[Grassy Knoll]

4. So, The Romans didn't crucify anybody ?

Don't talk about history and use it as a metaphor, unless you say it
exactly how a righty would phrase it. I've got a metaphor for you far right loons,
FUCK YOU.

[CBGLuthier]

7. Well their descendants spent 1900 plus years blaming someone else for a very famous crucifixion

You may have heard about that one.

[Igel]

11. Cruficy, sure.

But is that kind of cruelty what we want to support. Nah.

Stupid analogy. Over-the-top analogy.

And historically whacked. The Turks weren't in Turkey during Roman rule. If the Roman Empire crucified a Turk, it was because some poor Turk had made a very long journey from home to get to where the Romans were. There were no Roman villages on the Mediterranean for a very long time after the last (Roman) caesar.

By the time the Turks were around the only "Romans" were either citizens of Rome or the Byzantine Empire. I don't think either set in the 1300s were big into crucifixion.

So not only over the top, but showing an ignorance of history.

[Occulus]

12. Never. Apologize. To. A. Republican.

No matter what.

By apologizing, were doing their work for them.

[GreydeeThos]

5. Carbon polluters need to get the message: We're coming for you

The excessive emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere have to stop. The main producers of hydrocarbon fuel and the consumers of that fuel are going to pay for it.

[leftynyc]

8. Shouldn't have apologized

It encourages them to find something else to whine about.

[grantcart]

9. video no longer available lol

some low ranking bureacrat makes a poor analogy and this becomes news.

If only he had been so concerned with something as substantial as, I don't know, invading another country.