Stark says sorry for snarky remarks

Rep. Pete Stark has apologized for implying that Pres. Bush enjoys soldiers' deaths. Last week, during a debate over Bush's veto of a children's health insurance program, Stark made some strong statements: "You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Republicans tried to censure Stark for "despicable behavior," but only five Democrats crossed party lines and the resolution failed 196-173. This is not the first time Starks has made sparks fly, and it's not the strongest language he has used - most of it anti-homosexual, anti-minority, and anti-women.

In 2003, Stark taunted Rep. Scott McInnis when he asked Stark to stop disruptive behavior during a House committee meeting: "You think you are big enough to make me, you little wimp? Come on. Come over here and make me. I dare you….you little fruitcake. You little fruitcake." Then Stark called the committee chairman "a 10-letter homophobic insult … better suited for an anti-gay rap record than the Congressional Record," Michelle Malkin writes.

In 1990, Stark berated Louis Sullivan, an African-American and former Secretary of Health and Human Services for opposing Stark's health care proposals, calling Sullivan "a disgrace to his race and his profession." In 1995, Stark called Rep. Nancy Johnson a "whore" for the insurance industry. In 1999, he called a conservative California welfare director a baby-killer, saying she would "kill children if she had her way."

Homosexuals, minorities and feminists haven't raised objections to Stark's remarks, but the Secular Coalition for America applauded Stark for becoming the first member of Congress to avow atheism. After the censure resolution failed, House members applauded Stark's apology: "I hope that with this apology I will become as insignificant as I should be."