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New York State Senator Tom O’Mara apologized today after he was caught on camera unloading a curse-filled tirade onto a man calmly asking the senator about his support for a proposed liquified petroleum gas storage facility in upstate New York. O’Mara didn’t realize he was being filmed when he apparently lost patience for the guy asking questions and went nuts.
In the video above, O’Mara’s wife calmly defends her husband’s support for the legislation. “We love this area — he grew up here, his whole life, and protects this area,” she said. “He would never, ever, ever support anything that would contaminate this area in any way, shape or form.”
“That’s interesting,” the anonymous videographer responded, at which point O’Mara lost it. Skip to 4:25 for the fun part.
“Whaddya mean, ‘That’s interesting’? What the F*CK do you mean, ‘That’s interesting’? Tell me, for crying out loud, what the F*CK do you mean ‘That’s interesting?’I’ve done nothing other than sit here and answer your stupid f**king questions and you tell me that’s f**king interesting? YOU’RE A F**KING DOUCHEBAG. GET THE F**K OUT OF MY FACE RIGHT NOW. NOW! MOVE. MOVE. MOVE ASSWIPE NOW. I’ve had enough of you and YOUR KIND. GET THE F*CK OUT OF HERE. Get movin’.”
After the video leaked, O’Mara released a statement apologizing for blowing up.
“In hindsight, and especially in light of the fact that he was surreptitiously recording the exchange, I should not have attempted to respond to an unidentified stranger who was clearly looking to give me and my wife a hard time for his own purposes. He picked the wrong time and the wrong place to pull a stunt — a dimly lit parking lot while leaning into someone’s vehicle to secretly record a conversation without ever truthfully identifying yourself. He may have thought he was just pulling off some kind of a clever trap, but he should understand that there’s no way for us to know his intentions at the time.
“It’s regrettable that the exchange ultimately turned heated and, as an elected official, I regret the words and tone that were used. I still don’t like the underhanded tactics, but I should know better.”
If you listen to the entire video, however, it doesn’t really sound like the “unidentified stranger” was giving O’Mara a hard time so much as he was just pressing him to explain why he supported the legislation. He sounded pretty calm and reasonable to me.
Source: Times Union via Dave M.