Today's column: Who's sorry now?
It was an excellent week for public apologies.
The apology, which enjoyed a brief heyday during the Clinton years, seemed lately to have fallen out of fashion, replaced by spin-doctored non-admissions, like the lawyerly "mistakes were made" and the passive-aggressive "sorry you took offense."
Amazingly, though, actual contrition made a comeback this week, launched by a strong effort from Cardinal Francis George and buoyed along by an as-sorry-as-one-can-possibly-be-while-still-sneering Dick Cheney.
To encourage this positive trend, I offer the "Sorries," an annual award I hope will someday rival the local Daytime Emmys for prestige.
This week, I'm pleased to present the first batch of nominations for the 2006 statuettes.
Cardinal Francis George
George scores big points for his written apology, distributed to parishioners attending Sunday services this week, because it contained the actual words, "I must apologize to all of you."
He also acknowledged doing something wrong -- "failure to act more quickly" on complaints about the Rev. Daniel McCormack -- and promised future changes to avoid repeating his mistakes.
The two-page letter, dated Feb. 8, lost several points in the critical technical merit category, however, since it was sent out by fax -- what is this, 1992? -- and was not received by many local churches until Friday or Saturday.
Whether or not he wins a golden Sorry, the cardinal is a clear front-runner in the "most improved" category since he does seem, finally, to have grasped the concept that children, not priests, are the actual victims in the sex abuse scandals.
Michael Chertoff
"There are many lapses that occurred, and I've certainly spent a lot of time personally, probably since last fall, thinking about things that might have been done differently," Chertoff told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday, admitting he had mishandled post-Katrina relief efforts.
Unlike Cardinal George, though, Chertoff could not actually bring himself to say that he was sorry. He also slipped into the dangerously vague first person plural with comments like, "I was astonished to see we didn't have the capability most 21st century corporations have to track the flow of goods and services."
Chertoff's testimony smacked of false nobility, a kind of I'm-man-enough-to-admit-that-the-people-who-work-for-me-are-idiots statement reflecting his belief that he's taking far more blame than he deserves. Still, his remarks are well ahead of all the other Katrina-related non-apology apologies that have been trotted out thus far.
(Special note to Michael Brown: As any married man can tell you, an apology that begins with the phrase, "Just tell me what I did wrong," does not really count.)
Condoleezza Rice
Even though it's a pretty safe assumption that Condoleezza "Bin Laden Poised to Strike" Rice will never enter into serious Sorry competition -- regime change, after all, means never having to say you're sorry -- the Sorry Award jury does want to recognize Rice for her incredible capacity to stare down a request for an apology.
Asking Congress for $85 million to promote democracy in Iran would seem, in light of recent events in Egypt, Palestine and Iraq, to take an incredible amount of nerve. But Rice pulls it off with such aplomb that it achieves a kind of mea culpa jujitsu. Boldly resisting the false comfort of a limited admission, Rice's pose of absolute denial shames those who would utter a halfhearted apology just to smooth things over.
Dick Cheney
In an enormously surprising move, Vice President Cheney became the first administration official ever to utter this sentence: "You can't blame anybody else."
Sure, his scowling expression seemed to add the thought, "Believe me, I've tried," but he admirably avoided latching on to the earlier-in-the-week spin that had his hunting buddy haplessly stumbling into the line of fire. And Cheney only mentioned once that the sun was in his eyes.
Cheney's Wednesday interview with Fox News' Brit Hume included a blunt admission of personal responsibility -- "You can talk about all of the other conditions that existed at the time, but that's the bottom line . . . I'm the guy who pulled the trigger" -- but did have a couple of important lapses. He did not, for example, apologize to Harry Whittington. (And if you can't say you're sorry to someone for accidentally shooting them, you've really got issues.)
And, taking a move from Rice's playbook, he adamantly refused to admit that he'd made a mistake in not immediately informing the press about the shooting.
Still, it was an important step for an apology-challenged nation.
Here at the Sorry Institute, we're shining up our golden statuettes for any and all comers who'd like to jump on the apology bandwagon.
Governor Ryan? Mayor Daley?
Comments
Very interesting. Why is it you seem surprised that the man who pulled the trigger in a hunting accident says its his fault. Logic dictates this is so. The Republicans failing to 'apologize' for the 'so called' crimes they committed, that's something different. This one is cut and dried. But lets get to the meat of the matter. Your I'm Sorry award. One of the big political hay points being made by the Democrats and their minions, you people in the News Media, is that for some reason an 'apology' is needed by the administration over decisions made. And as the self appointed 4th branch of the government you, in the media have taken it upon yourself to somehow 'speak' for all of us in this matter and demand this apology.
First off, you don't speak for me. Second off, you don't speak for the majority of the people in this country. And most importantly, the people in this country can speak very well for themselves. These aren't the dark ages anymore, we have email, we have voicemail. We can talk to our elected people without the newsmedia being the self appointed voice. Perhaps you ought to concentrate on gathering the news instead of trying to 'make it'.
Ms. Rice does not need to apologize, nor does the president. And Mr. Brown has been fired. And trust me on this, FEMA under Clinton would have had the same problem, because the problem was that Lousiana screwed this up. YOu didn't hear about Mississippi making the same horrible mistakes that were made in New Orleans. The leaders of that City and State showed themselves to be jokes. I hope the voters take care of that for themselves. But they won't as long as you can blame the federal government for not being Mommy and Daddy and taking care of everything. FEMA comes in AFTER the disaster, not during. And the governor, fought off the requests to federalize, which is necessary by the law of this land before federal troops can be used. Yeah, its a stupid law, maybe that ought to be changed. Its called the posse comitatus act of 1878, it prevents use of US armed forces as a police type force. And that 'the national guard is all in Iraq' was a load of crap. The hurricane was coming for days and they did NOTHING and wouldn't co-operate with the federal government when they did attempt to help. Mr. Brown was rightfully fired. And wrongfully tarred with the failure. He was scapegoated, why don't you do your job and get EVERYONE who screwed this up. Don't demand apologies, expose the facts and let the people take care of it.
You haven't changed one bit since the Clarence Thomas hearings. Its still a high tech witch hunt.
PICKETT replies:
Actually, I have changed since the Clarence Thomas hearings. I'm a college graduate now.
Posted by: Bill F. | February 17, 2006 11:13 AM
I just didn't read your column the same way Bill did.
The "I'm Sorry" awards are well deserved by both the Bush administration over Katrina and by Cheney over his hunting mishap.
In both cases, any responsibility was loudly denied. In the case of Cheney, he (or more accurately his lackeys) first blamed it on Wittington. Seems he got in the way. Cheney's mea culpa came days later.
In the case of Katrina, it took President Bush more than a week before he conceeded that, just maybe, the federal government dropped the ball. Sort of. His insistence at first (through his lackeys) that everything in New Orleans was the fault of Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco smacked of grade school politics.
Their "I'm Sorry" prizes are merited by their initial denials that they did anything wrong, which were followed oh so reluctantly by their confessions that, yeah, maybe they did.
Posted by: Jeff Finch | February 18, 2006 07:37 PM
Why don't you just state that you are a liberal in the opening line of every article, that way people won't have to waste their time reading your entire article to figure it out.
PICKETT replies: If people haven't figured out my politics by now, a label probably isn't going to help them.
Posted by: Chris | February 19, 2006 09:44 AM
Warning - I am a Democrat
Does Chris always have to agree with someone politically for their viewpoint/message to be valid?
Maybe Chris should avoid newspapers and the TV because facts (e.g. there were no weapons of mass destruction) that make Republican leaders look less than great are bound to ruin his day.
Posted by: Yasmeen Schuller | February 20, 2006 01:52 PM
Yasmeen, I agree and disagree. Agree that people with different opinions might, in fact, be right. And agree that people who don't want to read the opinions of others might best avoid those sources to prevent high blood pressure. However, (notice that there's always a however) we do not agree on what is or is not 'important'. The democractic standard bearer in the last election was on record as thinking said weapons were there. And when the Democrats were controlling the exectutive branch there was the thought that Saddam was working on such things. So lets not twist the truth on this. Everyone thought there were weapons there, or at least the means to generate them quickly. The fact that those borders are even more porous then ours doesn't mean that the weapons didn't exist and get moved somewhere else, like Syria. Or just got buried somewhere in the desert.
They did find laboratories and the raw materials to make some really nasty stuff like Sarin. And he did manage to do a pretty good job during the Iran-Iraq war of using WMD.
Its the re-writing of history that bugs me. Something that Democrats are accusing this administration of doing as a means of justifying a war. But now they are all claiming that its not true, even though so many of them are on record saying it was true back in the Clinton days.
Its NOT about getting your guy elected, its about the truth. The news media needs to be concentrating on that, and helping a side in a political battle.
This is a blog, that's different. Blogs are about opinions. Reading and evaluating, and maybe even doing a bit of persuading. But for many of us, particularly us comment writers, its about letting off a little steam. I think we can all agree that a lot of what goes on in life tends to raise our internal temperatures a bit. Oh yes, I think that Bush has been less then magnificent at times as President, and I voted for him. I expected better from him, and from the republicans in congress. Neither party has nominated the best candidate for the job its almost embarassing to have to choose, in my mind, the man who will do the least amount of damage.
Posted by: Bill F. | February 27, 2006 02:33 PM