Dem party leader says she regrets word choice in Gov. Walker comments

Democratic Party head Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Thursday that she regrets saying Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s policies are akin to giving "women the back of his hand," after her comments drew wide condemnation from Republicans.

Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, made the comments during a discussion on women’s issues in Milwaukee on Wednesday.

"Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand. I know that is stark. I know that is direct. I know that is reality,” she said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

She didn’t stop there. According to the Journal Sentinel, she added: “What Republican Tea Party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back. It is not going to happen on our watch."

Wasserman Schultz said in a statement to FoxNews.com Thursday that she “shouldn’t have used the words I used.”

“But that shouldn't detract from the broader point that I was making that Scott Walker’s policies have been bad for Wisconsin women, whether it's mandating ultrasounds, repealing an equal pay law, or rejecting federal funding for preventative health care, Walker's record speaks for itself,” she said.

Walker told Fox News Radio Thursday that Wasserman Schultz’s comments were “outrageous,” and “offensive” to all victims of domestic violence.

“Not only was it outrageous towards me, somebody who actually helped build a number of domestic violence shelters and who signed some of the most aggressive domestic violence laws in the country, it’s just plain offensive to anyone, I think, who understands that political battles are no way like the kind of trials and tribulations that real people go through in our state and across the country,” he said.

Walker added he thinks the comments are a “window in just how outrageous some of these Democrats are going to be in the next couple of months.”

The Republican National Committee also condemned the comments, and a spokeswoman for Walker’s Democratic general election opponent Mary Burke said Wednesday that the comments were “not the type of language that Mary Burke would use.”