Tom Harkin backtracks from his sexist Joni Ernst comment

 A couple of days ago outgoing Democratic Senator from Iowa Tom Harkin implied that people were only intending to vote for Joni Ernst because she was attractive. In addition to insulting the voters of his state this was a sexist remark for it inferred that she was a pretty face and nothing more. And I thought it was the Republican party which was waging a war on women…

  Because he is a good liberal Democrat and is not a Republican the mainstream media largely ignored his remark, however it created a firestorm in the blogoshpere and on social media so today he was forced to backtrack from this sexist comment by stating he “shouldn’t have said those things.”

  Here is more:

“I shouldn’t have said those things, I know that. I regret anytime someone feels offended by what I have said,” the retiring Democrat said in a statement. “But I am only human and I can make mistakes sometimes in how I say something. I can assure Senator Ernst that in no way did I intend to offend her. In fact, I have complimented her on running a very good campaign.”

  Of course this stops short of being an outright apology, doesn’t it? He regrets that people were offended by what he said but he did not say he was sorry for saying it, he only stated he regretted the fact that people were offended by his remark. He regrets that his comment might have had the opposite of its intended purpose.

  In fact he did not say he did not believe what he said, only that he should not have said it. And those are two completely different things, are they not? Democrats are masters at the art of the non-apology apology.