Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) has apologized for calling a top adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a “whore.”
“I offer my sincere apology to Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke,” Grayson said in an e-mailed statement. “I did not intend to use a term that is often, and correctly, seen as disrespectful of women.”
In the e-mailed statement, Grayson gave further context to the comment, saying it was made “last month in the context of the debate over whether the Federal Reserve should be independently audited, was inappropriate, and I apologize.”
Grayson's apology is the latest in a string of incendiary statements by the Florida congressman, who in the past month has accused Republicans of wanting people to "die" rather than get better health care and has compared the health care crisis to a "holocaust."
Republicans circulated the audio Monday afternoon of Grayson calling Robertson a “K Street whore.” Todd Jurkowski, Grayson’s spokesman, initially defended the remark by saying it was in reference to her time as the top lobbyist for Enron. He also pointed to an alternate definition in a dictionary.
“The attack was on her professional career, not her personal life,” Jurkowski wrote in an e-mail to politico.com. “The second definition of ‘whore’ in the American Heritage Dictionary is ‘A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.’”
Robertson lobbied for Enron, the Clinton Treasury Department and Johns Hopkins University before going to work for Bernanke. Jurkowski said his boss was simply making a point about Robertson’s prior work.
"She had the audacity to attack a congressman who used to be an economist. She's a career lobbyist who used to work for Enron and advocates for whatever she gets paid to promote," Jurkowski said.
It's the second time in recent weeks that a Grayson aide has cited a less-incendiary meaning for a word to try to put out a political fire Grayson lit by using strong language.
In a House floor speech earlier this month, Grayson blamed Republicans for the current state of the health care system, which he referred to as a "holocaust in America."
He was rebuked by the Anti-Defamation League and offered an apology for his remarks, but staff for Grayson, who is Jewish, insisted he was using the small-h "holocaust" rather than the capital-h "Holocaust" that refers to the Nazis’ murder of 6 million Jews.
Several of Grayson's colleagues, including House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) have said his comments about Robertson were uncalled for.
Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) called them "a bit extreme and rather sexist."
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said Monday night that Grayson is "one fry short of a Happy Meal," but changed his tune a bit after speaking to his Florida colleague about the matter.
"Alan Grayson is a friend and an extraordinary member of Congress. No obviously playful comment from me should distract from the important role Rep. Grayson has played in focusing on the true and tragic costs of our broken health care system," Weiner said in a statement e-mailed to politico.com. "He is a leader and a patriot."