The presidential election seems to have brought out the worst in everyone. The latest example is Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who appeared to publish a tasteless tweet that summarized his hopes for Election Day.
Mark Loeffler, the communications director for the Texas Department of Agriculture, initially blamed the incident on hackers.
"We’re trying to get to the bottom of it. We think we’ve been hacked," he told mySA.com.
That explanations was later amended, blamed instead on a staffer.
"The campaign was retweeting information on Twitter today and inadvertently retweeted a tweet that they were not aware contained a derogatory term," Loffler said, according to Dallas News.
"The tweet was taken down as soon as possible. Commissioner Miller finds the term vulgar and offensive and apologizes to anyone who may have seen it."
When asked why he originally claimed the incident was related to hacking, Loeffler blamed miscommunication.
"I think that was the information that we thought at the time," he said.
"Once we got everybody in the room at the same time, we found out they had been copying and pasting these tweets and just were not paying enough close attention to what we were pasting."
Whoever’s responsible, this wasn’t Miller’s first rodeo. He has a history of posting controversial statements to social media. Last year, the commissioner shared a photo on Facebook that suggested bombing the "Muslim world."
"It is unacceptable for Republican Sid Miller to be promoting such disgusting rhetoric. Sadly, this kind of racist, xenophobic hate speech qualifies you for higher office with Republicans’ Tea Party fringe base," said Manny Garcia, Texas Democratic Party Deputy Executive Director, said in a statement.
"We hope Sid Miller shows some respect for Texans and the responsibility of holding state office and issues an apology."
This incident was also blamed on a staffer.
Last November, he came under fire for a Facebook post that compared Syrian refugees to rattlesnakes.
This post, however, was not blamed on staff.
