CREDIT: AP/MICHAEL DYWER.

You didn’t think I was serious, did you? Okay, well LePage sorta kinda apologized, except not really. He’s sorry he made noises about stepping down.

All of this morning’s headlines focused on Maine Gov. Paul LePage apparently apologizing for an angry voice mail he left a state lawmaker, suggesting during a radio interview that he might even resign.

By the end of the day, the headlines were about LePage taking back the idea of quitting.

Lost in the political intrigue is that LePage didn’t apologize for using a gay slur. (He repeatedly called Rep. Drew Gattine a “cocksucker.”) He’s instead apologizing for losing his temper. LePage said he nearly couldn’t breathe after a reporter told him Gattine had said the governor is racist.

LePage also certainly isn’t apologizing for endorsing racial profiling. In a news conference Friday after LePage got caught leaving that short-of-breath, furious voice mail, the governor defended himself by saying “people of color” are “the enemy.”

[…]

LePage is aware that what he’s saying is considered racist, though he’s equally certain he’s not racist.

“Now they’re saying, ‘Well, you can’t do this,’ every day they’re saying, ‘You can’t do it because of the racially charged atmosphere in our country,’” he said. “But the same token is all lives matter. That’s the bottom line: All lives matter. And the majority of people dying are Mainers.”

Yes, yes, dying at the hands of those awful brown people from out of state. This, when he openly admits all the meth in Maine is being manufactured and dealt by white Mainers. But it’s the brown people’s fault, and no, he’s not racist, not one whit.

The governor issued a much less apologetic statement before his radio interview. In it, LePage acknowledged he’d purposely called Gattine “the worst word I could think of.” He didn’t apologize to LGBT people. He didn’t take back the proposal to racially profile people entering Maine.

“I make no apology for trying to end the drug epidemic that is ravaging our state,” he said. “Legislators like Gattine would rather be politically correct and protect ruthless drug dealers than work with me to stop this crisis that is killing five Mainers a week.”

The worst word you could think of was cocksucker? Really? Wow. I get the feeling LePage doesn’t think much of women, either. As for your crisis of five Mainers a week dying, perhaps you need to focus on more social programs which could help people when it comes to drugs. Are you working to make sure people have clean needles? Do you have needle drop off stations? Free clinics with counseling? Low cost rehab? Anything? Because just being a racist twit who wants an excuse to go homicidal on brown people is not going to help your problem, Gov.

The Advocate has the full story.