MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell apologized today for calling southwest Virginia, "real redneck" country. Toward the end of her 1pmET hour, she said, "I owe an apology to the good people of Bristol, Virginia for something stupid that I said."

The editor of the Bristol Herald Courier (in Bristol, Virginia), J. Todd Foster, wrote a column published yesterday in response to the comment.

"I'm a redneck. But then again, so is every one of you reading this column. Or so says Andrea Mitchell of NBC News," writes Foster.

Mitchell made the comment last Thursday as she referred to "interesting images," of Sen. Barack Obama appearing with Sen. Mark Warner in southwest Virginia. "This is real redneck, sort of...um, bordering on Appalachia country," she said. "This is not the northern Virginia, sort of, high tech corridor. These are not voters he would logically be gravitating to." Click here for the YouTube clip.

"The last bastion of acceptable, politically incorrect stereotyping is making fun of Southerners," writes Foster. "And we're damned tired of it."

Click continued to see Mitchell's apology from this afternoon...