We posted yesterday about a report in the Hendersonville, NC, paper that N.C. Democrat Heath Shuler corroborated the reports of three black congressmen that the N-word was used by protesters at the Capitol on March 20, the day of the health care bill vote. Now, though, he says he was misunderstood. According to James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal‘s Best of the Web blog:

But when we phoned Shuler’s office this afternoon, press secretary Julie Fishman told us the local reporter misunderstood. According to Fishman, Shuler’s comments to the Times-News referred to the general tenor of the protests, not to the black congressmen’s specific allegations.

Fishman said that Shuler was not walking with Cleaver and did not hear the “N-word.”

Which explains why Shuler could not be seen walking with John Lewis, Emanuel Cleaver or Andre Carson, the three black Democrats who made the charge. He wasn’t there. The Hendersonville Times-News story, however, makes it sound as if he was (emphasis added). Where could they have gotten that idea?:

Shuler was walking with Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, an African-American, toward the Capitol building when the crowd starting yelling racial epithets at Cleaver, who was a civil rights activist in the 1970s. They even spat at him.

“It was the most horrible display of protesting I have ever seen in my life,” Shuler said.

Multiple members of Congress reported racial epithets being shouted at African-American members over the weekend.

“It breaks your heart that the way they display their anger is to spit on a member and use that kind of language,” Shuler said.