A statement sent to Defamer purports to offer an apology from Lorne Michaels, who regrets equating NY governor David Paterson's blindness to garden-variety retardation last week on SNL. But wait, says NBC: He's not sorry!

At least not officially — not yet — despite condemnation from the blind community and the governor's office itself. Instead, one of the outraged has pieced together this press release signed by Michaels, supposedly endorsed by NBC (using a well-known network publicist's name) and then disowned by SNL's actual publicist upon investigation. We'd let it go at that, except the fake is so crappy and loaded down with typos, hinting that maybe the sender, too, owes the governor an apology of sorts:

“On our program last week, during the Weekend Update sketch, we featured a parody of New York Governor David Patterson. [sic]

It was not our intention to insult the Governor or to demean anyone with a physical handicap. We have great respect for Governor Pattersonʼs [sic] achievements and his leadership of our great state, as well as for people all over this country and the world who continue to thrive in the face of adversity and better our world in spite of any physical handicap.

Sometimes, in attempting to make the audience laugh, people can be hurt or made to feel as if they are the butt of the joke. That was never our intention, and I hope that our attempt to entertain did not harm. Again, my sincerest apologies to Governor Patterson [sic] and to anyone who may have been offended by the segment.”

Don't mention it, "Lorne"! We're sure filmmaker Fernando Merrelies [sic] will be the next to send his contrite regards to those offended last summer by his allegory Blindness, which he now realizes "failed at the box office due to its vast, insensitive alienation of the sightless demographic, for which I am truly sorry." Surely he won't make that mistake again.