John Huppenthal is Superintendent of Public Instruction in Arizona. “Schools chief” in headlinese. He’s an ambitious, presentable chap who worked his way from local office to state office.

Turns out he’s been posting on blogs as Falcon9, Socrates, and Thucydides, at least since 2011. Saying mean racist classist stuff about “lazy pigs” on welfare, raging against the speaking of Spanish by people living in the US, repeating tedious lies about Obama, raving on various topics.

Falcon9/Socrates/Thucydides (I’ll say F9 for short) disapproved of “rewarding… lazy pigs with food stamps, air conditioning, free health care, and flat screen TV’s, typical of ‘Poor’ families”.

“We all need to stomp out balkanization. No Spanish radio stations, no Spanish billboards, no Spanish TV stations, no Spanish newspapers. This is America, speak English.” Still, “I don’t mind them selling Mexican food as long as the menus are mostly in English.” Although he wasn’t against immigration, he blamed illegal immigrants for crime and “half the murders in Phoenix” – in fact more than half. He wasn’t vague about this, he used statistics. Wrong ones, of course.

F9 didn’t like Obama, “the current slime in the white house”, and babbled “Its in Obamas book, Obama said he was born in Kenya!!!!”

Also F9 indicated that he’d be voting for that fine man John Huppenthal. That Huppenthal was no racist despite what people might say about his attacks on ethnic studies and that little kerfuffle where Huppenthal misrepresented a report on Tucson school district’s Mexican American Studies program.

In fact, F9 said, Huppenthal was so not racist that all his high school buddies – named – were Hispanics. “He was the only Caucasian in his social group.”

A lot of F9’s posts were on Bob Lord’s “Blog for Arizona.” Lord thought F9 seemed strangely knowledgeable about Huppenthal. How did he know the names of the high school friends? Some poking around, looking at IP addresses, and wow! look how you can track these comments back to the department of education!

When it came out that serious-minded Huppenthal was also spittle-spewing Falcon9, he admitted it, and apologized at a half-hour press conference which ended when he teared up and walked away. I watched it so you don’t have to. YOU OWE ME.

It was ghastly. Huppenthal kept repeating formulaic remarks about how the “hurtful blog comments” didn’t represent what was in his heart, and then speaking passionately, endlessly about the greatness of the department of education and everyone in it (especially, it was clear, John Huppenthal).

He begins, “I’m here today to apologize for my blog comments. I realize fervently, and more powerfully than ever, that all of my actions, both in my official role, and privately, need to bring honor on the great work being done by teachers on behalf of students… to principals leading schools, and especially they need to bring honor to all the great work being done in this agency.”

He describes his bravery: “I don’t mind getting beat up. I’ve been in elected office a long time…. That doesn’t bother me. What really bothers me is that my blog comments were hurtful…. I’m here today to repudiate those blog comments. I’m here to renounce those blog comments. They are not what’s in my mind. They don’t reflect the love that is in my heart. And they especially don’t reflect the actions of myself and especially my employees in the agency over the preceding years.”

He talks about himself – he came from poverty! Education saved his life! Now he’s on a mission to save others through education.

He speaks of his learned ideas. “Those philosophies, that economics, in no way, shape, or form, excuses the way that I expressed those sentiments…. That’s why I repudiate those blog comments, and I’ll not only repudiate them but apologize for them. It is okay to talk about policy. It’s not okay to talk about people.” (Or pigs.)

He keeps talking about his mission to provide opportunity to those in poverty and his department’s amazing successes. Reporters keep changing the subject to his racist remarks – isn’t that going to make it rather hard to work with people?

“I believe that all of us are children of God and that we are all created equal. That has been a part of my entire value system my entire life…. I have been relentless, tireless, about studying how do you create opportunity, how do you open up doors…. We – to an extent that people can never fully grasp – we in this agency are turning ourselves inside out to be servants.”

Someone asks if he can make amends. “The way I was brought up was, when your words are hurtful, the first thing you do is you understand how those words are hurtful, and you apologize for those words, and then, more than ever you dedicate yourself to service, to the mission that you’re on, which is helping, which is assisting, which is providing opportunity to those who have the least opportunities in life.”

More about his mission, his service, his successes “We are doing incredible things in this agency, and I’ll just go through a few of them.” (Which phrase is so often the last thing you remember hearing before you die of boredom.) But the jackals of the media keep asking, “If you’re SO LOVING, what about ‘LAZY PIGS’ and ‘SPEAK ENGLISH’?”

He talks about his lonely fight to make education better. “You can see, state after state, where elected officials folded like wet paper bags. I didn’t fold. I went out there and I fought for our education system,” he preaches. “I have fought and fought. No elected officials have walked into that firestorm the way I have.” Also? He didn’t flinch.

Yes, he will run again (primary this August, election in November) “I plan to go forward in service, both in the service I’m in, and on the election front.”

Finally, vaguely, he hints he was really tense when he posted that stuff. “My tension levels are much lower now about where we stand on these issues in general. But I want to make it clear that I repudiate that blog post [about pigs], and that does not represent the thoughts in my mind, or the love that I have in my heart for the mission that we are on, to help students who come from disadvantaged areas, that come from poverty areas…”

“I believe to the soul, to the core of my being, that the ability to speak, read and write English is the key to opportunity for students,” he said. Again: he’s renouncing! Repudiating! “I apologize for that way of expressing what was a deeply held value of myself.”

A reporter asked if he understood why his comments were hurtful. He says he’s talked “by the hour” to people about the hurtfulness. Then “The person I feel most for, to the point of my own tears, is my assistant, Merle.” Merle Bianchi is a long-time aide.

The reporter asks if he knows whether he hurt Bianchi. That’s when Huppenthal can’t go on. He wipes his eyes and walks off stage.

It’s a strange performance. The reporters are (mostly) trying to make Huppenthal stick to the subject, and draw a decent apology from him. Huppenthal knows he has to apologize, and has memorized some phrases, even though he can’t resist trying to distance himself. It’s never “what I said,” it’s “my hurtful blog comments.” He does use the phrase “I apologize” a few times, but much prefers to thunder “I renounce them! I repudiate them!” and “They are not in my heart.” And he really really prefers to brag about himself and his department.

He stays with “hurtful blog comments” and doesn’t confront calling people lazy pigs, or go into the matter of his longed-for Spanish-media censorship (now! with menu suppression!).

He sticks to his platform. Everything he’s done has been fabulous, and noble, and right! And he’s going to go on doing it! With love and service and mission. It was just those dumb blog comments, which don’t mean anything, which happened when he was tense, because people were getting in the way of his mission. Now it’s all fixed.

There’s that sentence I keep looking at: “I apologize for that way of expressing what was a deeply held value of myself.”

So many honesty issues. Even people who agree with everything F9 says might be troubled by the two-faced nature of Huppenthal’s forays into the public sphere.

Huppenthal says he won’t be posting any more blog comments. He still says he’s running again. But for some reason, his poll numbers are going down.