http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/cliven-bundy-attempts-befuddling-apology-article-1.1768653'Maybe I sinned...maybe I don’t know what I actually said': Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy attempts befuddling apology
'Maybe I sinned and maybe I need to ask forgiveness. Maybe I don’t know what I actually said,' the Nevada rancher told CNN on Friday, when asked to defend his opinion that black Americans would be better off as slaves.
BY Leslie Larson
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, April 25, 2014, 10:17 AM
Cliven Bundy has his cowboy boot in his mouth following a befuddling attempt to apologize for his racist remarks.
“Maybe I sinned and maybe I need to ask forgiveness. Maybe I don’t know what I actually said,” Bundy said Friday, when asked to defend his opinion that black Americans would be better off as slaves.
“I took this boot off so I wouldn’t put my foot in my mouth with the boot on,” he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo, suggesting he was ready to back down and strike a more conciliatory tone.
But that hope was short-lived as Bundy soon dived in to criticize people for being too sensitive.
“When you talk about prejudice … we don’t have freedom to say what we want.”
Rancher Cliven Bundy showed off his cowboy boot on Friday but still put his foot in his mouth.
“If those people cannot take those kind of words and not be offensive then Martin Luther King hasn’t got his job done yet.”
Bundy’s comments, first reported Wednesday by the New York Times, alienated many conservative supporters — including Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz - who had jumped up to support the stubborn rancher for resisting the federal government's attempts to remove his cattle from public land.
Senate Majority Harry Reid, a Democrat from Bundy’s home state, called his constituent a "hateful racist."
Reid himself himself has been criticized for racial insensitivity for referring to Obama as a "light skinned" African American, "with no Negro dialect" during the 2008 presidential race, according to the campaign tell-all "Game Change."