Mapp On Using F-Bomb: ‘I Didn’t Curse Anybody’

ST. CROIX — Governor Kenneth Mapp told this Consortium reporter during his Monday press briefing that he did not use an expletive when responding to a post critical of him on Facebook by a resident and staunch Republican, Herbert L. Schoenbohm, contending instead that he did not write a word in full, and therefore it was impossible to know what he meant.

“I wasn’t cursing, I didn’t curse anybody,” the governor contended. “You’re in a younger generation, but I could speak to my generation.”

In attempting to explain what happened, the governor spoke of the cartoons “Road Runner” and “Popeye the Sailor”, which he said he watched during his childhood. In these cartoons, Mr. Mapp said, when Popeye fought or the coyote could not catch up with the roadrunner, the characters “wanted to use any number of expletives” but couldn’t because, “in those days on TV, you couldn’t even use the word “damn”,” Mr. Mapp said. So as an alternative, the cartoon characters would use symbols to relay their frustration, he explained.

“In my comment to Mr. Schoenbohm, I used symbols,” the governor argued.

“Now in your mind, you interpret that to be cursing, that’s your morality, not mine. But you cannot produce any writing where I wrote any profanity in any of my Facebook posts from the time I’ve been on Facebook… Whatever you figure out in your mind, it’s left to your interpretation; I’m sure Mr. Schoembolm got my sentiments clearly… Maybe you feel that’s what I should have told Mr. Schoembolm, but that’s not what I said,” the governor insisted.

In the post that ignited the controversy, Mr. Mapp was responding to Mr. Schoenbohm after Mr. Schoengom questioned the choice of bottled water that Government House has been using. Mr. Schoebohm argued that the governor should send truckloads of Le Bleu water, which he considered to be premium, to local housing communities, where he said some residents were boiling cistern water or “brown WAPA coocoo water” to drink. Then he wrote, ‘Nope…only the best for the governor while the rest of us suck salt.”

In response, the governor wrote, “Le bleu water is bottled on st. Thomas. Herb, go $&#k yourself. I’ve been front and center from two days before Irma and have not stopped since and you complaining about water. Buy some and support the locals you blazing idiot,” the governor wrote.