If you were wondering whether Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is aware that Waynesboro Vice Mayor Jim Wood referred to him as “ol’ Pete Buttplug” in a Facebook talk show last week, oh, yeah, he’s aware.
His most recent post on Facebook is about Rush Limbaugh. I think we all know where he stands on homophobia.
— Chasten Buttigieg (@Chasten) February 22, 2023
That’s Chasten Buttigieg, Pete Buttigieg’s husband, tweeting there.
Wood has issued a half-hearted apology, which he put out after trying to claim that “Pete Buttplug” was “a play on his name only,” and was not “absolutely NOT a reference to his sexual orientation.”
This from a guy who made headlines back in November for making homophobic comments about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on his Facebook talk show.
How this matters in the bigger scheme of things is that the “Pete Buttplug” slur came literally two days after Waynesboro City Council approved a resolution to request a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, headed up by Buttigieg, for a city transportation project.
Wood’s name appears on the letter formally asking Buttigieg to approve a federal grant for a project to connect Waynesboro to the Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel.
The heat on Wood for his slur of Buttigieg is also heat on Waynesboro.
The mayor, Lana Williams, is trying to do damage control, issuing a harsh rebuke of Wood, saying she “cannot condone Mr. Wood’s comments in the podcast,” adding that (a)lthough Mr. Wood was speaking as a private citizen, his comments have a negative impact on the City, its residents, and Council.”
“Even if Mr. Wood did not mean for the comment to be interpreted as a slur, he should have at least recognized that others in the community would take his comment as a slur. Because it is a slur,” Williams said.
Any hope that the slur wouldn’t have an impact on the grant request is now, well …
The Buttigiegs are aware of what the city’s vice mayor said.
Perhaps a phone call from Jim Wood to Pete Buttigieg to apologize personally is in order.
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Chris Graham
