"I'm ashamed": Beto apologizes for her "degrading comments on women"

Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke apologizes for criticizing a Broadway musical with actresses "whose only qualifications seem to be their incredibly big breasts and tight buttocks."

In 1991, O'Rourke, 19, had revised the Broadway musical "The Will Rogers Follies" for the Columbia Daily Spectator, the university's student newspaper. Written under the seal of Robert O'Rourke, he described the show as "one of the most glaring examples of the nauseous excesses and moral degradations of our culture".

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He went on to lament the crowd of "actresses with permanent smiles whose only qualifications seem to be their incredibly big breasts and tight buttocks."

The review of the Spectator's October 10, 1991 issue, which, according to an archive search, was the only article he wrote for the newspaper, offers another insight into the applicant's previous life. Texas Senate, which gave Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) a reelection challenge of unexpected gravity. It also shows how the sensitivities surrounding women's descriptions have changed dramatically over the last three decades: It is unclear whether O & # Rourke criticized the fact that the musical uses women dressed lightly or comment himself on his body, his prose, with retrospective. , bangs anyway.

"The show basically tells the story of Will Rogers, the" lasso madman, "who had become an insignificant secondary attraction for one of the most prominent political experts and cultural statesmen in our history. Yet it is produced and realized in such a glaring, sumptuous and ultimately so sticky manner that one can not help feeling disgusted throughout the show. Keith Carradine, in the lead role, is surrounded by actresses to smile perma whose only qualifications seem to be their extremely big breasts and their tight buttocks. "

In a statement sent to POLITICO shortly after the publication of this story, O'Rourke apologized.

"I'm ashamed of what I wrote and I'm sorry, there is no excuse for making disrespectful and degrading comments about women," he said. declared.

While O'Rourke was not a fan of production, which had lasted more than two years at the Palace Theater, the musical won a half-dozen Tony Awards.

A person who opposed the O'Rourke Senate campaign reported the column to POLITICO.

O & # 39; Rourke, who acknowledged his arrests for drunk driving and property rights violations in the mid-1990s, concluded his review with a warning.

"One thing to take into account, however, is that I was the youngest person in the crowd at around age 60," he writes. "Although it outrages me, most people in this distant and distant generation really enjoyed the show and were very pleased with the performances."