A couple of months ago, Herman Cain, the lone African-American Republican seeking the party’s presidential nomination, said that he would never name a Muslim to serve in his administration nor name one to serve on the federal bench if he were to be elected president.

And here’s why: "There is this creeping attempt to gradually ease sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government,” Cain told ThinkProgress at the time. “This is what happened in Europe. And little by little, to try and be politically correct, they made this little change. And now they’ve got a social problem that they don’t know what to do with hardly.”

Sounds pretty clear cut, right? Cain also defended his remarks at the time, saying, “I does not care; I feel the way I feel.”

But now the presidential hopeful is saying that his comments were “misconstrued” and that he spoke without thinking. In an appearance on Glenn Beck’s radio show Tuesday, Cain sought to clarify his remarks.

“I immediately said—without thinking—‘No I would not be comfortable.’ I did not say that I would not have them in my cabinet,” Cain said. “If you look at my career, I have hired good people regardless of race, religion, sex gender, orientation and this kind of thing.”

So, that’s what he really meant—for now, at least.

(Photo: AP Photo/FOX, Fred Watkins)