Arizona schools chief John Huppenthal apologizes for ‘hurtful’ blog posts
Jun 25, 2014, 1:08 PM | Updated: 8:43 pm
PHOENIX — Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal
broke down in tears at the end of a press conference where he apologized for
posting anonymous blog comments that denigrated welfare recipients and others
that were seen by some as racist.
Huppenthal apologized Wednesday afternoon for what he called “hurtful”
comments that he said didn’t reflect what he felt in his heart about either
minorities or poor people who receive public assistance.
The Republican had apologized last week for blog posts in which he called welfare
recipients “lazy pigs” and said Planned Parenthood was the cause of abortions
among African-Americans.
The blogger who helped track down a mystery writer who used the pseudonyms, Falcon9, Socrates and Thucydides used IP addresses to find out the true identity of the writer — Huppenthal — who had piqued his interest by the type of comments left on the Valley-based website BlogForArizona.net.
“There were comments that had a racist edge, there were comments that were bizzare — for example blaming Roosevelt for Hitler’s rise,” blogger Robert Lord said. “If there was someone he didn’t care for, he’d find a way to compare them to Nazis or Hitler himself.”
Some of the comments left on the website included:
• “Obama is rewarding the lazy pigs with food stamps (44 million people), air-conditioning, free health care, flat-screen TV’s (typical of “poor” families).”
• “No Spanish radio stations, no Spanish billboards, no Spanish TV stations, no Spanish newspapers. This is America, speak English.”
• “I don’t mind them selling Mexican food as long as the menus are mostly in English. And, I’m not being humorous or racist.”
According to Lord, Huppenthal appears to only be sorry for the fact that he was caught.
“The comment he made just three weeks ago, he was defiant,” Lord said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
