Trent Franks, speaking Saturday, on President Obama:
Obama's first act as President, of any consequence, in the middle of a financial meltdown, was to send taxpayer's money oversesas to pay for the killing of unborn children. ... A president who has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can't do that right, then he has no place in any station of government, and we need to realize that he's an enemy of humanity.
Trent Franks' spokeswoman on Tuesday (emphasis mine):
My colleague Daniel Libit got a hold of Franks’ spokeswoman, Bethany Barker, who says her boss had meant to say the President of the United States was merely the "enemy of unborn humanity."
There's no question that Franks' comments were motivated by his views on abortion, but did he really mean to use the phrase "enemy of unborn humanity"? If so, he'd have been the first person ever to use that word combination, at least according to Nexis.
According to Nexis, before September 25, 2009, the phrase "enemy of humanity" had appeared in English language news sources 2,743 times.
The phrase "enemy of unborn humanity" appeared exactly 0 times.
In other words, Trent Franks said what he meant, and meant what he said.
But even if Franks did mean to say "enemy of unborn humanity," is that an excuse? After all, he also said that President Obama "has no place in any station of government" because "he can't see the image of God" in fetuses.
Trent Franks' spokeswoman would have you believe his words were a harmless slip of the tongue. The plain facts of the matter tell a different story.