UPDATE: Chairman Buckley emailed the following on Sunday: “I called O’Brien a buffoon not baboon. Baboon doesn’t even make sense silly! Plus I would never insult baboons like that!”
It is unclear whether Buckley has asked the Union Leader to run a correction (as of Sunday night, their orginal story is still posted as run), or whether there is video or audiotape to prove or disprove Buckley’s assertion that he was misquoted.
The original story follows:
NH Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley called House Speaker Bill O’Brien a “baboon” at the Democrats’ annual McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club dinner Friday night.
Saying that winning back control of the state house was his party’s top priority (um, more important than electing a Democrat governor, Ray?)Buckley spoke of Speaker O’Brien and said, “There is nothing more important in the state of New Hampshire than to get rid of that baboon,” according to the New Hampshire Union Leader.
Present at the dinner were dinner namesake and U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, former Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, gubernatorial candidates Maggie Hassan and Jackie Cilley, and congressional hopeful Anne McLane Kuster.
If any of those prominent Democrats rebuked Chairman Buckley for his comment, looked embarrassed, or merely pretended to have not heard it, the paper did not say.
Imagine for a moment the faux outrage Buckley would express had a Republican candidate referred to, say, President Obama, as a baboon.
Something also to keep in mind the next time Chairman Buckley decries the lack of civility in politics.
fergus@ferguscullen.com, March 17, 2012
