I'm terribly sorry. Really
In a deeply therapeutic culture, apologies function like secular sacraments. But more and more people demand them, while fewer and fewer are willing to give them. So instead of "I did it and I'm sorry," we get fake apologies and conditional ones. Some examples:
The basic conditional apology. Secretary of Education Rod Paige said to the National Education Association," If you took offense at anything I said, please accept my apology." If? He had said the NEA is a terrorist organization.
The misdirection conditional. Sen. Christopher Dodd claimed that Sen. Robert Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, would have been a great senator at any time in history, including the Civil War. Dodd's "if" statement said: "If in any way, in my referencing the Civil War, I offended anyone, I apologize." This made it sound as though someone was hounding Dodd for mentioning the Civil War.
The I-gotta-be-me conditional. After turning a press conference into a brawl, boxer Mike Tyson explained: "I responded as I saw fit. In the process, things that I said may have offended members of the audience. To these people I offer my apologies."
The subject-changing, head-scratching conditional. In 1985, after saying that South African bishop Desmond Tutu was "a phony," Jerry Falwell said he meant that Tutu could not speak for all South Africans. Falwell offered an apology if the bishop thought he was being impugned as a person or a minister. Oh. So that's it.
The subject-changing, head-scratching nonapology. When Jane Swift served as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, she used state employees to baby-sit her infant daughter. Asked to explain, she said: "I won't apologize for trying to be a good mother."
The I-was-misunderstood nonapology. Sen. Trent Lott blamed "a poor choice of words" for his suggestion that the segregationist Strom Thurmond of 1948 should have been elected president.
The incomprehensible conditional. Rep. Corrine Brown recently called U.S. policy on Haiti a racist policy concocted by a "bunch of white men." When a Mexican-American assistant secretary of state objected, Brown issued a conditional apology to Hispanics, saying that she meant to indict whites only, adding, "You all [nonblack people] look the same to me." Luckily for her, Brown is a Democrat so her remarks went nowhere in the media.
The "regret" nonapology. In finally acknowledging his perjury and the Monica Lewinsky affair, President Clinton said: "I know that my public comments and my silence about this matter gave a false impression. I misled people, including even my wife. I deeply regret that."
The accusatory conditional. "If, in hindsight, we also discover that mistakes may have been made . . . I am deeply sorry," said Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, while apologizing (sort of) for bishops who failed to deal with sex scandals in the Roman Catholic clergy. "Hindsight" means that the critics are just second-guessers who weren't there.
The accusatory nonconditional. "Your government failed you. . . . And I failed you," said Richard Clarke at the 9/11 hearings. But his book makes clear that he doesn't believe he failed anyone. What he means is that President Bush failed the nation. No one has ever buried a severe accusation in a pitch-perfect Oprahfied apology like Clarke.
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