From Our ArchivesDemocratic political operative and zinger machine James Carville has done the unthinkable: apologized for one of his inflammatory utterances. In a letter to the editor published on Tuesday in LSU’s student newspaper, The Daily Reveille, Carville referred to anti-tax zealot/lobbyist and bearer of “the pledge” Grover Norquist as “the human equivalent of pond scum.”
Carville was railing against the Jindal administration and the outsized influence in Louisiana politics of Norquist’s D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform.
But Carville issued a statement late Thursday saying that he was sorry for searing simile:
Since the publication of my Letter to the Editor yesterday, I have received a considerable amount of comments on my comparison of Grover Norquist to pond scum. As someone who has spent so much time in the public square, I understand how words and characterizations can be hurtful and unfair to those involved in the comparisons. After prayer and deep reflection and consultation with my spiritual and ethical mentors I am forced to take a step I rarely approach in my public life and that is to apologize to pond scum.
Read Carville’s original LTTE here.