Republican Rep: I Didn't Say The Girl Deserved To Be Raped! (Because The New York Times Said It First.)

By Brandon K. Thorp Thu., Mar. 17 2011 at 5:09 PM

Passidomo: I didn't mean what I said, I didn't say what I said, and anyway we should blame the New York Times.

A lot of people are now officially pissed off about State Rep. Kathleen Passidomo's statement from last Tuesday, defending Florida's "sagging pants bill." (Which is a mostly fine bill, by the way.) Just because I can still hardly believe it myself, here's that quote once again:

There was an article about an 11-year-old girl who was gangraped in Texas by 18 young men because she dressed up like a 21-year-old prostitute. And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it's incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas won't happen to our students.

Jesus! No matter how much I read it, it never stops sounding crazy!

The Buzz was the first news organ to report the quote, and I'm pretty sure we were the second. The Juice's story on the subject has now been quoted at The Huffington Post, RawStory.com, and ThinkProgress. (New York Magazine picked up the story, too, but declined to mention us.)

On the evidence of the comments generated by those stories, Kathleen Passidomo's received quite a few angry letters today. (If you think she deserves a few more, you may submit them here.) She's got a pat response down, which she neatly summarized for NaplesNews.com:

The blame is solely on the boys for what occurred. Those kids were going to find somebody. They're predators. They're going to be dealt with in the judicial system. But the young girl has to deal with this for the rest of her life. My whole comment was, how do we protect kids from these predators?

Well, no, that wasn't her whole comment, but let's let that pass. According to ThinkProgress, Passidomo has also insisted that her controversial remark merely parroted this New York Times article. "Thank you for your concern," Passidomo allegedly wrote, "I was not referring to my own opinion to the cause of the rape, but to the cause implied by a March 8th article of The New York Times." Fair enough, if Passidomo is copping to being an unthinking automaton who regurgitates whatever hare-brained idea the media foist upon her. Except that the Times story in no way suggests that the 11-year-old was raped because of her clothes. Not once. That notion was Passidomo's invention, no matter what she says.

Follow The Juice on Twitter: @ TheJuiceBPB.

Tags:

Kathleen Passidomo, rape, sagging pants bill

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elhart

hey, here's the facebook page to help her step down: http://www.facebook.com/nomore...

elhart

fyi: check out the photos on the page.

voice in the dark

to rep.passidomo and the people who think like her-i don't care if that young lady was walking naked down the middle of main street at high noon there is nothing that justifies rape.a man ,a real man doesn't need force these were obviously low life worms who couldn't get a woman to look at them so they attacked a child.the most aborrent phrase i have ever heard was she was asking for it......a concerned father

Matrix29

Rep. Kathleen Passidomo is a disgusting psychopath. Blaming an 11-year-old girl for being gang-raped by more psychopathic blacktard thugs. Kathleen Passidomo should be recalled from office (and jailed immediately) and then, if she has any moral capacity within herself, should go find a very tall building (before arrest) and then leap off for the benefit of humanity. Kathleen Passidomo is a disgusting "human" being and clearly mentally unfit for any position of authority and clearly unfit for any level of trust.

chris

Wait...so this woman inserted her dumb foot into her mouth, and your educated response is for her to kill herself? Where did you become so enlightened? Vassar? BCC? I feel sorry for your kids. If they spill soda in your house, do you beat them?

Tanja Cilia

I wrote to the Senator and she replied:http://www.timesofmalta.com/bl...

Nanag122247

What is their excuse if the victim is a ninety year old woman. Rape is about power and control

lurch394

I don't know--doesn't Passidomo look like she wants a pearl necklace?

FNACalGal

A Republican lies, and that's news why?

Sam

Haven't we gotten past the dress like a slut deserve to be raped premise like 20 years ago. Now we are applying it to children? Makes no sense to me. Women don't deserve to be raped based on attire, nor do children, rape is not a crime of passion it is a crime of violence and power.

lifelongyankfan

You mean media foist. Media is plural. The singular is medium. You know media is plural because it is many more than one. It's Latin, like stratum, strata and datum, data. Where does this lazy writing come from, anyway?

Brandon K. Thorp

Lifelongyankfan:

Hey. Sorry about the slip-up. It's been corrected. To answer your question: Most blogs are necessarily first drafts, and first drafts are almost always imperfect. Please keep pointing out errors, and I'll happily fix em.

Thanks,- BKT

FNACalGal

Overpaid teachers, obviously.

Boraxo

Women who report being sexually assaulted as adults: 22%As children: 25% (as high as 40% in some meta-studies)Men who report being sexually assaulted as adults: 3.8%As children: 8% (as high as 13% in some meta-studies)Proportion of children who were victims of sexual abuse in a single year (2002): 3.2%

Sources: Journal of Traumatic Stress, Crimes Against Children Research Center

Were they all dressed slutty? Or, gee, maybe there's just one astounding amount of sexual violence in our society, and we better start figuring out how to stop it. Locking up these offenders for the rest of their lives would be a good start.

Anon

Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands — known as the Quarters — said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record. “How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?”