One of my daughters likes to ask to do something and when told no, say “Just Kidding!” This is usually something like have a bowl of ice cream before dinner. She isn’t kidding, of course, and for a five year old it’s kind of a cute habit.
Not so cute when it’s a guy running for Congress:
Less than a week later, Schock retracted, saying he “went too far.”
On Tuesday, he told the editorial board of the Peoria Journal Star, “When I made the statement, the tone in which I made it was more in jest.”
“Well, if the Chinese want to sit on their hands and allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, then perhaps we should sell nuclear weapons to Taiwan,” Schock told the board in explaining why he said what he did and the tone in which it was made. “That’s why reporters in Peoria, Jacksonville and Springfield, television, radio and print media, nobody thought two seconds about what I said. But when you read it in black and white and take it as a serious proposal, then obviously it puts it in a different perspective.”
In a phone interview with the Journal-Register’s political writer, Bernard Schoenburg, the day Schock retracted the statement, his campaign manager, Steve Shearer, said Schock’s proposal was “not just something that he pulled out of his pocket. … It’s a deeply thought-out policy.”
“It’s irresponsible, it’s reckless and it’s downright frightening to discuss nuclear warfare in jest,” said Matt Bisbee, spokesman for Jim McConoughey, one of Schock’s opponents to replace U.S. Rep Ray LaHood, R-Peoria, for the 18th Congressional District seat. “It’s unbelievable to me that you can discuss something with such severe consequences in a campaign for U.S. Congress in jest. It just doesn’t make any sense and screams irresponsibility.”
Schock went on to tell the editorial board that he penned the initial comments himself, he “overstated the case,” and that he doesn’t want to sell nuclear weapons to Taiwan.