Rep.-elect Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) called for a restoration of civility in an editorial in The Washington Post on Tuesday, just days after he appeared on “Saturday Night Live” to make peace with the show’s Pete Davidson.
Crenshaw expanded on his decision to appear on the program’s “Weekend Update” segment with Davison after the comedian had mocked his appearance a week earlier and said that Crenshaw simply “lost his eye in war or whatever.” The lawmaker wrote in the Post that he decided to go on the show to bury the hatchet but hadn’t publicly demanded an apology because he had no desire to “fan the flames of outrage” common in today’s politics.
“On Saturday, Pete Davidson and SNL made amends. I had some fun. Everyone generally agreed that a veteran’s wounds aren’t fair game for comedy,” Crenshaw wrote in the piece. “Maybe now we should all try to work toward restoring civility to public debate.”
Davidson drew fierce condemnation after he mocked the eye-patch Crenshaw wears, comparing him to a “hitman in a porno movie.” The politician is a former Navy SEAL who lost his eye in an explosion while serving in Afghanistan.
The comedian invited Crenshaw on “SNL” last Saturday to apologize for the joke, and the two agreed to move forward after exchanging some good-natured quips.
“If any good came of this, maybe it was that for one day the left and the right finally came together to agree on something: That I’m a dick,” Davidson said. “I mean this from the bottom of my heart: It was a poor choice of words. The man is a war hero, and he deserves all of the respect in the world.”
Crenshaw told NBC earlier this week he was glad he went on the program and that it “felt like the right thing to do,” and that he “would appreciate if everybody would stop looking for reasons to be offended, and that’s what this was all about.”
In the editorial Tuesday, the former Navy SEAL said he hoped the appearance would be “a tiny step” in the direction of civility but noted that, “as a country, we still have a lot of work to do.”
“There are many ideas that we will never agree on. The left and the right have different ways of approaching governance, based on contrasting philosophies,” he wrote. “But many of the ultimate goals — economic prosperity, better health care and education, etc. — are the same. We just don’t share the same vision of how to achieve them.”