Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin apologizes for claiming teacher walkout led to child rapes and poisonings

It has come to my attention that these words may affect my future political ambitions, so I recant them.

On Friday, Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin waded into the state's teacher walkout by telling reporters those teachers would be responsible for the rape or death of any students who had to stay at home that day.

“I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today, a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them,” Bevin told reporters Friday evening after teachers swarmed the Capitol by the thousands over a battle to raise education funding in the state. “I guarantee you somewhere today, a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were left alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them.”

This was rancid spin even by modern Republican standards, and today Bevin apologized for those comments. Sort of.

"I apologize for those who have been hurt by the things that were said was not my intent whatsoever," Bevin said in a video message Sunday. "For those of you who have been hurt, it is my absolute sincere apology to you, it is not my intent to hurt anybody in this process but to help us all move forward together."

Walking back your theory that teachers protesting the state's education spending are contributing to sexual assault or poisonings with the words it is not my intent to hurt anybody takes some serious chutzpah, but at the least it suggests the nationwide blowback to Bevin's claims convinced him he had overstepped. Or at least convinced him he needed to cover his backside a wee bit on that one.