There are apologies, and there are Washington apologies—the types of mea culpas where someone seems more sorry that they got caught saying something than actually, you know, saying it to begin with.

That much goes for Mid-Atlantic AAA’s spokesman John Townsend, who today apologized for calling Greater Greater Washington founder David Alpert “developmentally retarded” and comparing him to a member of the Ku Klux Klan. In a brief statement, the car and driver advocacy organization stated:

The remarks attributed to John Townsend reported in the City Paper article are inappropriate, and in no way representative of AAA Mid-Atlantic’s views. Mr. Townsend apologizes for comments attributed to him that were offensive.

It was never Mr. Townsend’s intention to be insulting and agrees that there is absolutely no place in the public discourse for personal attacks.

That said, Mr. Townsend believes that many of the statements were presented out of context and mischaracterize the discussion.

We put in a call to the national AAA office for comment, but haven’t gotten anything back yet, so we’ll have to take this as the organization’s official apology. If so, it’s lame. How, exactly, would context change the following statements attributed to Townsend? We’ll take a guess. (The italicized parts are from the City Paper article.)

Real Quote: “He is a nerd,” Townsend says. “I think that he’s developmentally retarded.”
Context: “He is a nerd, and I think nerds are the greatest. Revenge of the Nerds is my favorite movie, maybe ever. I think he’s developmentally retarded, and I use ‘retarded’ in the French way, meaning that he’s late. He’s late to development meetings, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

Real Quote: Townsend believes that Alpert dishes out criticism from the protected space of his blog that he wouldn’t dare speak in person. “It’s almost like the Klan hiding behind the white masks,” Townsend says.
Context: “It’s almost like the clan, a clan of fun little ghosts, hiding behind the white masks, fun little white ghost masks. Like Casper. Yeah, that’s what he’s like.”

Real Quote: AAA doesn’t respond to Alpert, Townsend says, because he’s “not worthy” and it would be “like shooting a gnat with a bazooka,” but Townsend himself is not above lashing out at Alpert. “I’ve told him to his face, ‘You’re a little ninny,’ and he ran out the room like a schoolboy,” Townsend says.
Context: “Gnats are not worthy, but I’ve got some heavy-duty bug repellant. It’s so good that it’s like shooting a gnat with a bazooka. I’ve told him to his face—this one specific gnat—’You’re a little ninny,’ and he ran out of the room like a schoolboy. And by run I mean fly. Wait, aren’t we supposed to be talking about cars? Man, I hate gnats something awful.”

Seems a little unlikely that context is what made Townsend’s comments sound as bad as they were, huh?