In a disingenuous effort to deflect the firestorm that has engulfed him for calling President Obama a “subhuman mongrel,” Ted Nugent is dishonestly claiming that President Obama previously said the same thing.

Nugent's comments were criticized from politicians of both parties and the media after he appeared at two campaign rallies for Texas gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott last week. The National Rifle Association board member and Outdoor Channel spokesman offered an insincere apology on February 21 for the racist remark, but two days later began demanding apologies of his own on Twitter after discovering that “Obama called blacks mongrels on the View.” He will likely offer a similar argument when he appears on tonight's edition of CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront.

But words in different contexts can have different connotations. Nugent's comments are in no way comparable to Obama's.

During a July 2010 discussion of race relations on The View, Obama was asked why he identifies as African-American rather than biracial given that his mother was white. Obama replied that because “the world saw me as African-American,” he embraced that. He added that because many who identify as African-American have some white ancestry, “we are sort of a mongrel people.” He concluded that he is “less interested in how we label ourselves, and more interested in how we treat each other.”

BARBARA WALTERS: You do not describe yourself as a black president, but that's the way you are described. Your mother was white. Would it be helpful, or why don't you say “I'm not a black president, I'm biracial.”

OBAMA: Well you know, when I was young, and going through the identity crises that any teenager goes through -- I wrote a whole book about this -- part of what I realized was that if the world saw me as African-American, then that wasn't something I needed to run away from, that's something that I could go ahead and embrace. And the interesting thing about the African-American experience in this country is that we are sort of a mongrel people. I mean, we're all kind of mixed up. That's actually true for white America as well, but we just know more about it. And so, I'm less interested in how we label ourselves, and more interested in how we treat each other. And if we're treating each other right, then I can be African-American, I can be multi-racial, I can be, you name it, what matters is, am I showing people respect, am I caring for other people, that's I think the message we want to send.

[APPLAUSE]

By contrast, during his January 2014 interview, Nugent attacked Obama as a “Chicago communist raised communist educated communist nurtured subhuman mongrel” and an “ACORN community organizer gangster” who should be imprisoned for treason.

NUGENT: I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist raised communist educated communist nurtured subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America. I am heartbroken but I am not giving up. I think America will be America again when Barack Obama, [Attorney General] Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, [Sen.] Dick Durbin, [former New York City Mayor] Michael Bloomberg and all of the liberal Democrats are in jail facing the just due punishment that their treasonous acts are clearly apparent.

So a lot of people would call that inflammatory speech. Well I would call it inflammatory speech when it's your job to protect Americans and you look into the television camera and say what difference does it make that I failed in my job to provide security and we have four dead Americans. What difference does that make? Not to a chimpanzee or Hillary Clinton, I guess it doesn't matter.

Anyone who claims that these comments are comparable only exposes themselves as either a liar or a fool.