Howard Dean Backtracks On ‘American Sniper’ Comments

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman, Howard Dean, has offered an apology to veterans for comments made about the hotly debated film American Sniper. Dean apologized after coming under heavy criticisms for the comments he made on Friday’s episode of Real Time With Bill Maher.

“There’s a lot of anger in this country, and the people who go see this movie are very angry. And this guy basically says, ‘I’m going to fight on your side.'”

Appearing on MSNBC‘s Hardball, Howard Dean said he wanted to apologize to veterans. Dean confessed that he is not accustomed to apologizing throughout his career. Dean added that he had not seen the movie despite making his assessment.

Earlier, actor Gary Sinese tweeted a response to Dean’s criticism of American Sniper.

To Howard Dean, I saw American Sniper and would not consider myself to be an angry person. You certainly have a rig… http://t.co/TrZSeBFcc1

— Gary Sinise (@GarySinise) January 26, 2015

Sinese praised the cast and the production team for their portrayal of “a family representative of thousands of military families.”

“To Howard Dean,”
“I saw American Sniper and would not consider myself to be an angry person. You certainly have a right to make stupid blanket statements, suggesting that all people who see this film are angry, but how is that helpful sir? Do you also suggest that everyone at Warner Brothers is angry because they released the film? That Clint Eastwood, Jason Hall, Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller and the rest of the cast and crew are angry because they made the film? Chris Kyle’s story deserved to be told. It tells a story of the stress that multiple deployments have on one military family, a family representative of thousands of military families. It helps to communicate the toll that the war on terror has taken on our defenders. Defenders and families who need our support. I will admit that perhaps somewhere among the masses of people who are going to see the film there may be a few that might have some anger or have been angry at some point in their lives, but, with all due respect, what the hell are you talking about?”

The former DNC chairman had received a torrent of abuse from many supporters of the film on Twitter. Dean made it clear that he will not apologize to “the thousands of right-wings nut jobs.”

“I make no apologies to the thousands of right-wing nut jobs who have Twittering me with nasty language, but I do apologize to the veterans. We owe them a lot and I think this movie was much more nuanced than I thought. To the people who tweeted me over the weekend and used a lot of bad language, they are chicken hawks and I have no respect for them,”

However, Howard Dean made no reference to Gary Sinese’s comments.

[Image via nbcnews.com]