BET co-founder Shelia Johnson — a Democrat who supports the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia — has apologized for derisively imitating the halting speech pattern of the Democratic candidate, Creigh Deeds.

Johnson was caught on video mocking Deeds at a campaign event on Sept. 25 for Deed’s GOP opponent, Bob McDonnell. Johnson told the crowd that the next governor of Virginia should be someone “who can really communicate, and Bob McDonnell can communicate … The other people I talk to, especially his op-op-op-o-opponent, di-di-did this all through my interview with him … He could not articulate what needed to be done.”

McDonnell — whose campaign was shaken a month ago by the release of a thesis he wrote while a student at Pat Robertson’s CBN University (now known as Regent University) that was filled with virulent anti-gay and misogynist rhetoric — was present at the event.

Shelia Johnson is apparently either apathetic about or in agreement with McDonnell’s bigoted views — as are most Virginians. McDonnell is currently polling 11 points ahead of Deeds.

Reacting to a reporter’s request, the McDonnell campaign sent over a snark-filled non-apology:

“Creigh Deeds has never had a problem voicing his false attacks about Bob McDonnell. What he has had difficulty expressing is any positive vision for Virginia’s future. Democratic businesswoman Sheila Johnson was noting that fact. Why the Deeds campaign wants to attack a prominent supporter of both Governor Tim Kaine and President Barack Obama, while reminding voters that she strongly supports Bob McDonnell for governor, is beyond us.”

But then Johnson issued a pro forma backtrack:

“Two weeks ago I made reference to Creigh Deeds’s inability to clearly communicate effective solutions to the serious problems facing Virginia … I shouldn’t have done it in the manner in which I did, and for that I apologize for any offense he, or others, may have taken.”

In the lead-up to the South Carolina primary in last year’s presidential campaign, Johnson’s former husband and BET co-founder, Bob Johnson, a Clinton supporter, created a stir when he made a veiled reference to then-candidate Barack Obama’s admission he’d smoked pot in his youth. He also compared Obama to Sidney Poitier in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”