Hal Rogers receives an honor from the Distilled Spirits Council!

Posted at 04:01 PM ET, 10/13/2011
Rep. Hal Rogers jokes about Chinese accent at Mount Vernon Distilled Spirits Council gala!

By The Reliable Source



Rep. Hal Rogers (Ed Reinke/AP)

"Rep. Hal Rogers raised some eyebrows Wednesday night when he sprinkled a little ethnic humor into a dinner speech. Accepting an honor from the Distilled Spirits Council at a gala dinner at Mount Vernon, the 16-term Kentucky Republican joked about the perpetual debate over how to pronounce his state’s largest city (“some say Lou-ee-ville, some say Lou-iss-ville, some say Lou-uh-ville”), reports our colleague Maura Judkis. The Appropriations Committee chairman went on to describe a dinner with “the Chinese ambassador, who spoke broken English but was trying to impress his staff with his knowledge of the U.S.” (Rogers didn’t specify which ambassador; China has sent three different envoys to D.C. over the past decade.)

The diplomat told his staff that they needed to know how to pronouce the name of the city where the Kentucky Derby is held, said Rogers:“‘It’s not Roo-ee-ville, it’s Roo-uh-ville.’ ”

“A simple and unfortunate attempt at humor that clearly fell flat,” Rogers’s spokesman Michael Higdon told us Thursday. (Though, full disclosure: The room did laugh.) “He apologizes if anyone took offense. No harm was meant whatsoever by the story.”

Anyway the Distilled Spirits Council should be proud of the way things are going here in Clay County these days. There are beer trucks all over the place. The preachers complain about the sale of Distilled Spirits, but yet back the recepient of the Distilled Spirits Council honor in the general election. Next time let's replace Hal Rogers with a Democrat! Kenneth Stepp.