So what happened that Carl Paladino had to "backtrack" on his earlier written comments? As we reported last week,

Artvoice asked 42 Buffalo locals: WHAT DO WE WANT FOR 2017?

Some responded by saying they hoped the Bills would make the playoffs, wishing for high speed rails, increased shopping, even the impeachment of Donald Trump, but nobody made the type of vile comments that Paladino offered.

Artvoice: What would you most like to happen in 2017?

Carl Paladino: Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford. He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret, who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her.

Artvoice: What would you most like to see go in 2017?

Carl Paladino: Michelle Obama. I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.

Paladino verified to The Buffalo News that he did make the comments, while at the same time slamming News editors for inquiring.

"Of course I did," he said Friday morning. "Tell them all to go f--- themselves."

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And now he's "apologizing," using three well-worn conservative defenses (via Mediaite):

1. "I didn't know my comments would be made public."

2. "I was “wired up” after watching Obama’s response to the devastation of Aleppo." (He never mentioned Aleppo in his remarks, just cows and gorillas and beheading White House staff.)

3. The David Vitter Defense: "My enemies will use this against me." Or as Carl Paladino calls them, “rabid hordes of attacking parasites we now call activist progressives.”

Everybody with a functional brain knows exactly why you said what you did, Carl. It makes you a hero with the Crazy Uncle Liberty email set.

And it's probably because you're about to lose your job that you issued this non-apology apology.

You haven't changed, Carl. As Keith Olbermann pointed out in 2010, you're still the worst person in the world.