Marilyn Davenport: The Evolution of a Scandal

[Moxley Confidential] How that racist Obama-family-chimpanzee email has driven the OC GOP apeshit

Comments (0) By R. SCOTT MOXLEY Thursday, Apr 21 2011

I asked for her reaction to the scandal. Her shoulders slumped. She sighed, shook her head slowly and said, "I understand why everyone is contacting me. I wasn't wise in sending the email out. I shouldn't have done it. I really wasn't thinking."

But, I asked, are you really repentant?

Not racist? On what planet?

R. Scott Moxley

Marilyn Davenport says she's sorry

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"Yes. . . . Before I sent that email, I should have stopped to think about the historical implications [of depicting a black man as an ape]," she said. "That can be offensive . . . and I am so sorry."

The scandal certainly isn't earth-shattering. Yet, if you are looking for evidence of progress in OC, here it is: In the long list of right-wing kooks who have turned the county into a political punch line during the past 50 years, none of them ever apologized and asked for forgiveness. Indeed, most of them shamelessly reveled in their nastiness. For Davenport, conceding that her email could have offended people—even if it appears she doesn't quite understand why—makes her footnote in the annals of the 2012 presidential campaign perhaps slightly less damning.

Portions of this story originally appeared on the Weekly's Navel Gazing news blog.

This column appeared in print as "Evolution of a Scandal: How Marilyn Davenport's racist Obama-family-chimpanzee email has driven the OC GOP apeshit."