The Update Desk: An Ignoramus for Christmas

This just keeps getting better and better, this Carl Paladino 2017 Wish List.

You remember his comments, right? He was one of the Buffalo-area businessmen asked to complete a little survey for Artvoice, an artsy-newsy-entertainment mag. Paladino wanted President Obama to die of mad cow disease, and Michelle Obama to go back to being a man and live out her life in a cave with a gorilla. Good stuff, there, from your school board member, right?

Then, after some backlash when his comments went bigly viral, he added fuel to the fire by issuing a lengthy comment, again to Artvoice, about his 'deprecating humor', explaining his reasoning.

...he attacked the press; he attacked the Obamas as two America-hating progressive elitist ingrates; he mentioned hundreds of fired soldier generals and admirals; he talked about Michelle's hatred of America; Barack's yellow-bellied cowardice; unvetted immigration of Muslims; drug pusher commuted sentences; the silent-majority middle class rising up against Democrats and Republicans alike; the end of an era of mainstream media; a fraudulent shadow government and a lazy-ass president; the end of the progressive movement; Trump being called unfit for office; and a president doing nothing for black children.

Now, you could be forgiven for thinking that maybe he didn't really believe what he said, and that he really thought he was being funny, until you read his explanation on why he made the comments. I mean, if a person really thinks that the President and First Lady are America-hating progressive elitist ingrates and all, you would not expect that person to apologize for his sense of humor, right?  And I would not demand that he apologize. As I noted the other day, we have a First Amendment which allows a person to make a total ignoramus of themselves - no apology required.

Apparently the backlash was all too much for him, though.. Disavowal by the Trump team, for whom Paladino was a chief ally. Slapdown from our Sonofa Guv Andrew Cuomo, who crushed Paladino in the gubernatorial race in 2010, and from OnJoanie Mahoney, a Republican Paladino accused of being a liberal. Mahoney called upon others to also speak up or, in effect, agree with Paladino by their silence, and she, like many others - dozens of others - referred to his comments as racist. And so, even though he did not have to, Paladino apologized.

Sort of. I think. In a statement on his Facebook page, he poured out his heart and soul. Take a  look:

I never intended to hurt the minority community who I spent years trying to help out of the cycle of poverty in our inner cities. I apologize. 

If he had actually intended to apologize, that would have done the trick. It responded to the hurt many in the minority community may likely have felt, hearing an old white guy talking about the death by horrible disease of the first African-American president, and the gender and gorilla comments about the president's wife. But he did not stop there.

About the minority community, he added this.

I thought about them every day as I fought against unqualified and incompetent superintendents, administrators, teachers and School Board members, unfair union contracts, broken homes and children who can't get the education they need to break that cycle of poverty because our school system is a failure, for reasons that needn't be. 

And then he sort of blamed Obama and Syria, saying that he got the survey at the wrong time.

(It came at) an emotional moment after I had just listened to Obama's statement that he regretted the slaughter in Aleppo that, in fact, resulted from his failed and cowardly foreign policy. I view Barack Obama as a traitor to American values...

And then he sort of blamed being a human being, after starting to blame the media.

I wanted to say something as sarcastic and hurtful as possible about the people who are totally responsible for the hurt and suffering of so many others. I was wired up, primed to be human and I made a mistake, I could not have made a worse choice in the words I used to express my feelings.

Which makes no sense, if he was in fact trying to be as hurtful as possible, right?  And then he sort of blamed the Board of Education, or the teacher's union.

It's all too easy to make mistakes when you're emotional about the rigged teachers' contract by an incompetent Board of Education majority who sold out the school district as payback to teacher's union leader Phil Rumore for his election support. They couldn't care less about the children of Buffalo.

But no, that second slam of his School Board counterparts wasn't the reason, either. Nope -- it was an accident!

I did not mean to send those answers to Artvoice, Not that it makes any difference because what I said was inappropriate under any circumstance. I filled out the survey to send to a couple friends and forwarded it to them not realizing that I didn't hit "forward"I hit "reply." All men make mistakes. 

Well, that stinks. I mean, most of us have sent emails we wish we hadn't, or responded to all when we shouldn't have, or forgot to step away from the keyboard and clear our heads before actually sending an emotional email, right?  Of course, I don't think most of us who did that then add insult to injury by doubling down, proudly doubling down and taking credit for our words, do you? Only to then apologize/defend/excuse the words by adding more fuel to the fire?

After going back to a more humble declaration of stupidity, about having to explain to his daughter how he could be so stupid, he lit a match.

What is horrible is watching my family and friends react to the rabid hordes of attacking parasites we now call activist progressives... And for the vanquished progressive haters out there spewing their venom at anything that is a reminder of their humiliating defeat, irrelevance is tough to chew on...For the mean-spirited, disoriented press trying to find grounding and recover legitimacy on my back, pray that you still have a job next year because you have lost all credibility with the people... I certainly am not a racist. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

Damn -- that is one emotional, wired up, primed to be human excuse of an apology of a poor substitute for standing up for what you believe in, who's passing on to his teen-aged daughter that having the courage of your convictions only matters until you get yelled at for having them, at which point the best thing to do is load up your word bazookas and fire in every conceivable direction at once, not worrying about who else you antagonize in the process.