Colorado Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn apologized Monday night for saying during a Friday appearance on a Denver radio program that embracing President Barack Obama’s policies is like “touching a tar baby.”
Lamborn made the comment on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman program in reference to the President’s budget priorities.
“Even if some people say, ‘Well the Republicans should have done this or they should have done that,’ they will hold the President responsible,” Lamborn said. “Now, I don’t even want to have to be associated with him. It’s like touching a tar baby and you get it, you’re stuck, and you’re a part of the problem now and you can’t get away. I don’t want that to happen to us, but if it does or not, he’ll still get, properly so, the blame because his policies for four years will have failed the American people.”
The term “tar baby” is widely regarded as a racial slur.
Late Monday evening Lamborn’s office announced that he had sent a letter to President Obama. Lamborn’s communication’s director later explained that the congressman meant no disrespect.
“Congressman Lamborn regrets any misunderstanding. He simply meant to refer to a sticky situation or quagmire,” she wrote in an email statement.
This is not the first time a member of Congress has come under fire for using the term “tar baby.” In 2009 North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx faced severe criticism for using the term in reference to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
“I thought about just a common sense way to describe this to people: the Democrats have a tar baby on their hands and they simply can’t get away from it,” she said then. “They are stuck on this problem.”