Gov. Paul LePage on Friday called his comment about out-of-state drug dealers impregnating "white" women in Maine a "slip-up," but told members of the press to get their "heads out of the sand."

"I was going impromptu and my brain didn't catch up to my mouth....I made a mistake and I'm not perfect. But I will not stop correcting myself and bringing the issue at hand, drugs, drugs, and more drugs. Beatings, beatings, and more beatings. We have people dying. Families being destroyed. And we have children that we, the state, have to take in. And we don't know what their future's going to be. That's what this whole thing is about."

In question is a comment that the governor made during a town hall meeting in Bridgton on Wednesday night. LePage said that drug dealers with names like "D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty...these types of guys...they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue to deal with down the road."

At the press conference on Friday, the governor said he spoke for an hour and fifteen minutes at the town hall meeting and, on that night, no one in the room reacted to his remarks. He blames "one blogger" for all the controversy and told members of the press that they're in the pockets of bloggers.

During the question and answer period, LePage apologized "to all Maine women." He admitted that he should have used that term "Maine woman" on Wednesday night, rather than "white girl." But since Maine's population is primarily white, that's the way the remark came out. LePage once again asserted that it was not meant to be a slur or racial comment.

"You can take the kid out of the street, but you cannot take the 'street' out of the kid," LePage said about his often-crude manner of speaking.

More From WWMJ Ellsworth Maine