Marilyn Davenport Gets It Right, A Little

See yesterday's post for more on this, but I give props to Marilyn Davenport for at least getting the optics right in this apology:

"To my fellow Americans and to everyone else who has seen this email I forwarded and was offended by my action, I humbly apologize and ask for your forgiveness of my unwise behavior. I say unwise because at the time I received and forwarded the email, I didn't stop to think about the historic implications and other examples of how this could be offensive," Davenport's apology read.

Republican Party Chairman Scott Baugh has reportedly entreated Davenport to resign from her position, as he has determined that the group's bylaws prevent its members from voting her out. He told the Associated Press he hopes to have an ethics committee investigate the incident.

As of Monday, Davenport said she had no intention of taking him up on the offer.

"I'm not going to resign," Davenport told the Orange County Weekly in an interview. "I really have no plans to do so. My constituents have told me not to resign, and I'm very happy with their support. Everybody who knows me says they can't believe people are calling me a racist. I am not a racist, but I do think I need to apologize again with different words."

"Basically, what I'm saying is that as a Christian I won't ever repeat this," she said. "I will be much wiser from now on."

Baugh said that despite Davenport's apology, he continued to condemn her behavior and believe she should resign.

"The email is without question extremely racist," Baugh said. "Depicting African-Americans as monkey is a longtime, well-known and particularly offensive slur because it denies them their basic humanity."

"The damage to the Republican Party has been done by her and I still think she should resign,"he added in an interview with the Weekly.

So is Baugh right? Should she resign? I'll put it this way: I hope she doesn't. But I hope the Republicans (and especially the Tea Party) get painted as a bunch of clueless racists. My hope is that the entire pundit  apparatus comes to the defense of Davenport, and also insists that reason that African-Americans are prone to criminal activity because of their brow size.  Therefore, she might think twice about the nature of MY support.

By the way, I just checked the FoxNews website. Check out their coverage of the whole incident!