From Tongue Tied.

An Army enlistee who sponsored an online contest for the best papier-mache pig made from pages of the Koran on his personal website was asked by his superior officers to remove it because it was “insensitive to our enemies,” according to the Canton Repository.

…

Alvarez has since replaced the contest with the message, “We regret to inform you that the PC police have required the termination of the ‘Create a Pig From the Koran’ arts and crafts contest.”

A few days ago Durbin insisted he wouldn’t apologize.

Friday 6/17:

If there’s a lesson to be learned here it’s not that my remarks were wrong or that there’s any need for apology,

I’m certainly not going to be intimidated by the right-wing message machine,” he said. “If I’m going to back off every time they decide their unhappy with my statements, then I really won’t be doing my job.

So either he’s not doing his job and has been intimitated, or he has not really apologized. And in fact, concensus seems to be that he hasn’t apologized.

But The Political Teen has the video of Durbin’s non-apology apology.

Conservative Thinking accepts the apology but says:

Perhaps you should read your speeches out loud to your staff before you read them in front of America from now on Senator Durbin.

Via LaShawn, tNoYF has some Durbin Dr. Seuss.

Scott Ott has the newest accusation from Durbin.

Sen. Dick Durbin, who recently compared U.S. personnel at the Guantánamo Bay terrorist-detention facility to Nazis, took the Senate floor today to slam U.S. troops in Iraq for their “progressive poisoning” of the imprisoned Saddam Hussein with snack foods.

VodkaPundit doesn’t buy it.

The forced apology doesn’t mean much. The damage is done, and al-Jazeera isn’t likely to tout Dickie’s retraction with much vigor.

Wizbang points out that Durbin actually tried to apologize twice!

First time:

I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support.

Second time is here.

Un-common Sense will not accept it.

I’m not accepting any apologies from a guy who compares me and my comrades to Soviets in their gulags, Nazis, or Pol Pot - but at least he has the courage to apologize, which is more than I can say for those that jumped on his bandwagon.

Mark in Mexico thinks Durbin should have picked some different Lincoln quotes.

The Strata-Sphere thinks it’s too little too late and the Anchoress is not convinced the apology is sincere.

Larry Bernard summarizes this way:

Wow… so many words yet none of them “I was wrong” or even “My words went over the line”