Source:
USA TodayHouse Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said this morning that he regretted using the term "un-American" to describe the actions of opponents of health care legislation in a USA TODAY opinion piece last August. Hoyer, whose name is on the op-ed piece along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, used the term to describe raucous town-hall meetings in which politicians were sometimes shouted down.
Our Gannett Washington bureau colleague Chuck Raasch reports that Hoyer says the phrase "shouldn't have been used."
"That was a very unfortunate phrase to have used," Hoyer told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. "Now, I think there (are) some activites not consistent with civil engagement in a democracy that are occurring. The indication, however, that disagreement and vigorous debate was un-Ameican, to the extent that that was the implication, was not a good phrase, not a good use of language, and was not correct. I regret having read it quickly and approving it."
The phrase has become a rallying point in signs, rhetoric and conversation at Tea Party rallies around the country. Hoyer said he does not think it has fed the opposition, arguing that Americans were already angry and anxious about "mortgage regulatory neglect, the implosion of the financial institutions, extraordinary risk taking, the estrangement of risk from responsiblity."
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http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2010/04/hoyer-says-he-regrets-using-un-american-in-health-care-op-ed/1