{"id":4551,"date":"2005-06-27T13:40:41","date_gmt":"2005-06-27T17:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4551.html"},"modified":"2005-06-27T13:40:41","modified_gmt":"2005-06-27T17:40:41","slug":"the-lost-art-of-the-political-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-lost-art-of-the-political-apology\/","title":{"rendered":"The lost art of the political apology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dana Milbank had an interesting item<\/a> yesterday about apologies, or the lack thereof, in today’s political discourse. It seemed to me, though, that there was a trend that Milbank may have missed.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we could arrange for a group apology. It would certainly save time.<\/p>\n

The capital has been racked by a bipartisan barrage of incautious remarks this year — a bull market in over-the-top rhetoric — as Democrats and Republicans take turns expressing outrage that the other side has crossed the line.<\/p>\n

Thursday, it was the Democrats’ turn to be outraged, after they learned that President Bush’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, said in a speech Wednesday night that “liberals saw the savagery of the 9\/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.”<\/p>\n

That blast — which the White House defended as accurate and fair — took the heat off Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who apologized Tuesday on the Senate floor for saying, a week earlier, that what Americans had done to detainees was similar to what was “done by Nazis.”<\/p>\n

The Durbin mea culpa, in turn, moved the spotlight away from Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.), who accused Democrats of “denigrating and demonizing Christians.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Milbank emphasized that the rhetoric dominating political discourse seems to be growing coarser. I think that’s probably true, but in noting that we could use a “group apology,” Milbank failed to notice that only one side of these fights seems willing to join the group.
\n
\nConsider the four examples Milbank mentioned<\/a>: Durbin compared our detainee policies to that of totalitarian regimes and Harry Reid called Bush a loser. Rove effectively accused Dems of treason<\/a>, while Hostettler insisted Dems hate Christianity<\/a>. Durbin and Reid were talking off the cuff, Rove and Hostettler were reading from prepared texts. Durbin and Reid apologized. Rove and Hostettler did not.<\/p>\n

I think there may be a trend here. When Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) made excuses for violence against judges, Dems demanded an apology. He declined<\/a> and lashed out at his critics. When Bill Frist said Dems want to “assassinate [Bush judicial] nominees,” Dems demanded an apology. Frist declined, too.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Rick Santorum didn’t apologize<\/a> for comparing Dems to Nazis; Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) didn’t apologize<\/a> for saying he believes American liberals should be on the front lines in Iraq; Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) refused to apologize<\/a> for comparing Dems in the legislature to terrorists, Dick Cheney didn’t apologize<\/a> for telling Pat Leahy to “go f— himself,” then-Education Secretary Rod Paige didn’t apologize<\/a> for calling the National Education Association a ” terrorist organization”; and none of the Republican senators who called John Kerry a “communist<\/a>” apologized.<\/p>\n

Milbank may be right, and political apologies may be a lost art, but it seems Dems are willing to offer them, but Republicans, no matter how over the top their rhetoric gets, aren’t willing to do the same. Indeed, the GOP strategy is clear: when a Dem says something intemperate, demand an apology and create a media firestorm. When a Republican says something excessive, ignore calls for apologies and wait for Dems to stop asking for one.<\/p>\n

What’s the lesson here? Being a Republican means never having to say you’re sorry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dana Milbank had an interesting item yesterday about apologies, or the lack thereof, in today’s political discourse. It seemed to me, though, that there was a trend that Milbank may have missed. Perhaps we could arrange for a group apology. It would certainly save time. The capital has been racked by a bipartisan barrage of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}