AKA William

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I have no idea how, but I missed this last week.

Republican Florida neurosurgeon, Dr. David McKalip, decided it would be really funny and not racist at all to send an image of Obama as a witch-doctor around to as many people of his Tea Partying friends as possible.

Worse, Dr. David McKalip is a member of the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates and is a founder of Doctors For Patient Freedom, a conservative anti-health-reform group. And, in a recent op-ed published in the St. Petersburg Times, McKalip wrote that “Congress wants to create larger, government-funded programs for health care and more bureaucracy that ration care and impose cookbook medicine.”

Well, the Florida AMA wasn’t having McKalip’s nastiness and officially condemned McKalip’s emailing of the Obama image. After some resistance, issued an apology directly to President Obama:

“I genuinely regret the decision I made in passing this e-mail message along. Directly to President Obama, I sincerely apologize for offending him. This was, in no way whatsoever, my intention. The image has nothing to do with my feelings or thoughts on any race or culture. I recognize that this image is offensive and hope that the nation refocuses on assuring all Americans have access to high-quality, affordable health care with no party interfering in the patient-physician relationship . . . .”

As nice as the apology was, it was mostly insincere — in an email sent to his Tea Party buddies he downplayed his apology and wrote that his little “lapse in judgment” was being exploited by “powerful enemies.”