Jamaal Bowman wants you to know that he’s now sincerely sorry about all those rapes.
Not ones that he committed himself, mind you. (Bowman may be a deeply goofy, lumbering “Squad” Democrat representing Westchester County, N.Y., with all the worst progressive politics in the world, but he is reportedly quite the genially approachable fellow.) The rapes of all those Israeli women, that is — atrocities committed on and after the October 7 surprise attack by Hamas on the Jewish state. Politico reported this morning, in an entry from its “New York Playbook,” that Bowman, currently running for his life against locally popular Westchester County executive George Latimer in the Democratic primary set for next Tuesday, now regrets having called reports of brutal sexual violence inflicted (indeed, GoPro’ed) by Hamas terrorists on Israeli women “propaganda” and “lies.”
Back in November, Bowman sang a different tune: On November 17, he stated that “there’s still no evidence of beheaded babies or raped women, but they still keep using that lie [for] propaganda.” Now he’s sorry. “Immediately when the U.N. provided additional evidence, I voted to condemn the sexual violence. I apologize for my comments, and now we’re continuing to do the work to fight sexual violence and domestic violence in all its forms.” I suppose that finding yourself so far underwater in your reelection polling that you can see the bottom of the Hudson — “So that’s where they stashed Hoffa!” — gives a man ample cause to reconsider his political follies (Emerson had him down 48–31 against Latimer as of two weeks ago), but I somehow doubt the contrition is sincere.
This will be brief, since I’ve decided that I have to now “meter” my Jamaal Bowman posts until his primary comes. You can’t try and squeeze too much comedic juice out of this orange, and I already have something big planned for next Tuesday. All signs point to defeat and the lamentable extinguishment of the Democrats’ most reliable source of amiable idiocy, to be replaced by a smarter, much more sensible and reliably loyal one. And if not, well, then I’ll pity Westchester County but pop a beer myself. For what’s an opinion writer to do other than mourn the loss of one of America’s last true poets? Will America lose its goofily hapless progressive House lug nut? Who else can we find who has written 9/11-truther slam poetry? Is this the end of Yonkie Shakespeare?