Armey Remark About Democrat Sparks Furor : Politics: House majority leader says he merely mispronounced Rep. Frank’s name in an interview. But some think it was not an accident.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.) touched off a political firestorm Friday by referring to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as “Barney Fag” during a radio interview.

The Texas Republican later angrily denied using the slur, which was recorded by several radio networks, and blamed the news media for misreporting the incident.

But in the highly charged, partisan atmosphere pervading Capitol Hill since the Republican sweep in the Nov. 8 elections, Democrats wasted no time in trying to take political advantage of the episode.

Armey said that his utterance was neither an intentional insult nor a slip of the tongue, but an accidental sound that came out as he mispronounced the name of the Massachusetts Democrat, who is gay. He quickly apologized to Frank, but the liberal Democrat later told reporters that he could not accept it.

“I’m representative of a lot of gay people and lesbians who are a lot more vulnerable than I am to prejudice and so I have an obligation not to just shrug my shoulders and laugh it off,” Frank said. While accepting Armey’s assurances that the remark was not intentional, Frank said he could not believe that it was the result of any difficulty that Armey had in pronouncing his name.

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“There are a lot of possible ways to mispronounce my name but that one, I think, is the least common,” Frank said, adding that it strained credulity to imagine that “this was the result of his tongue hitting the wrong teeth with the wrong action of the chin.”

The remark itself came during an interview that Armey gave to radio reporters early in the day. Alluding to the Democrats’ criticism of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) for the potentially lucrative book deal that he has signed with a New York publisher, Armey said that he too is writing a book, but would donate the proceeds to charity to avoid becoming the target of similar criticism.

“I like peace and quiet and I don’t need to listen to Barney Fag, (pause) Barney Frank, haranguing in my ear because I made a few bucks off a book,” Armey said.

“I do not want Barney Frank to believe for one moment I would use a slur against him,” Armey later told reporters. “I had trouble with alliteration. I was stumbling, mumbling,” he said of the remark.

Those present when Armey made the remark, however, said that the Dallas lawmaker did not sound like he was stumbling over Frank’s name. As recorded on tape, he clearly spoke the words, then paused and said “Barney Frank” with added emphasis on “Frank.”

“I don’t think it was a total accident,” said Frank. “It may not have been on the tip of his tongue but, on the other hand, I think it was at the back of his mind.”

As word of the incident spread, provoking sharp criticism from Democrats and gay rights groups, an emotional Armey went to the House floor to again assert that it was “nothing more than an unintentional mispronunciation” and to angrily denounce the media for reporting it. “It was not an attack. It was not even a Freudian slip and I don’t need any psychoanalysis . . . from people who are not trained in psychoanalysis,” he said.

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Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), who is a psychiatrist, said he could not accept Armey’s contention that the remark was accidental. “Slips of the tongue are revealing what is really inside,” he said.

“It’s one of those things that is so terrible you wish you could say it was a mistake but I just can’t believe that,” added Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), who said it was indicative of the “new mood of meanness” pervading the House in the wake of the GOP takeover.

Robin Kane, a spokeswoman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called Armey’s comment “deplorable and dangerous” and said that gay rights groups are particularly concerned because Armey comes from a state where eight gay men have been murdered in less than two years. “Rep. Armey should be denouncing that language that validates such violence, rather than using it himself,” Kane said.