MELISSA BLOCK, Host:
Admiral Allen isn't the only public official backtracking this week. Yesterday, on Capitol Hill, Texas Republican congressman Joe Barton apologized to BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, for what he called a $20 billion shakedown by the White House. Later, though, Barton stepped back from that.
R: I want to apologize for that misconstrued - misconstruction.
BLOCK: And later, he retreated still further. He said he retracted his apology. Well, our humorist Brian Unger has been parsing congressman Barton's statements.
BRIAN UNGER: Mr. Barton's clunk and mangle of Funk Wagnalls is a slap in the face to anyone who stays up late arguing over two-letter Scrabble words, whose idea of a wild night is staying home drinking Schnapps and diagramming sentences. I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it.
R: But when a congressman who demands proper English be the language of the land, and then destroys that language in front of an Englishman, I must apologize for me, myself or I. To my mom and dad, I'm sorry.
BLOCK: Humorist Brian Unger.
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MICHELE NORRIS, Host:
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