Disculpas

A few days ago, Newt Gingrich insulted Latinos and everyone who has ever lived in the ghetto by disparaging Spanish as a "ghetto" language.

Now Newt apologizes - in Spanish - for offense given, but also clarifies that he would like to discontinue America's bilingual education programs and replace them with intensive emersion in English.

In the last week, Newt has ingratiated himself with anti-Latino Americans and now he scores points with an apology to Latinos for his ealier insults. At least he DID apologize, and used no four-letter words in the process.

Newt's Spanish is comprehensible and he obviously made an effort to master many words and phrases, if he did not already know them. His apology is effective. Sensitive Newt as we have never seen him before.

He can afford to be sensitive here, in the assurance that his conservative-reactionary base will have no idea what he is saying and will not hold this apology against him.