Patriots, boy scouts and bad apples praying together for armed revolution

“I am very quick in calling American citizens ‘patriots,’” [Nevada senator Dean] Heller said in an interview. “Maybe in this case, too quick.”

Heller added: “I want to make it very clear that I never called Bundy a patriot. And I believe Bundy should have been paying those fees.”

“What Sen. Reid may call domestic terrorists, I call patriots,” he said during the April 18 televised interview. “We have a very different view on this.”

Asked about those comments Tuesday, Heller noted that there were Boy Scouts at the Bundy protests, while scores of supporters were singing the national anthem, delivering the pledge of allegiance and praying.

“I don’t think Occupy Wall Street [activists] were doing the same thing when they were having their protests,” he said.

While Heller said about “80 percent” of the protesters were “people I called patriots,” he added that there were “some bad apples in there, bad actors, no doubt.”

Heller’s comments come as the senior Nevada senator, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has referred to Bundy’s supporters as “domestic terrorists,” has been the subject of threats at his home, prompting the U.S. Capitol Police to investigate the matter. Reid’s security detail has been increased, sources said, after he called Bundy a “hateful racist” last week.

“Each day that goes by it’s hard for me to comprehend how ugly, vile, vulgar and threatening people are, sending letters to my home and making other threats,” Reid, a Democrat, told reporters Tuesday. “So I don’t know who’s mad at me, but it’s a long list I guess.”

Reid added: “What also bothers me is virtually every one of these horrible things they send, they cite scripture. They cite something out of the Bible. Now try that one on.”