Thursday, November 02, 2006
Kerry's "Apology"
Over the years, I have noted that as a rule, the longer and more complex a statement of apology is, the less likely it is to be a real apology.
Here's the full text of John Kerry's reluctantly given "apology" for his "botched joke" on Monday, from his website:
As many others have noted, this is one of those "non-apologetic apologies" that politicians and other public figures have become so adept at making. There must be a class on this stuff in PR agent school.
The gist of Kerry's statement is in the first sentence of the second paragraph, where Kerry says, "I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted ...." If that's true, then anyone who interpreted his words "correctly" must have been a mind reader. Here's what he actually said:
What's to misinterpret? I'm willing to grant that Kerry might have misspoken, that he indeed "botched" a joke (something that he's apparently very good at--botching, that is), but he said what he said, and he's still trying to spin the story to make it seem like he said something else.Here, in my opinion, is what a real apology would look like:
Here's the full text of John Kerry's reluctantly given "apology" for his "botched joke" on Monday, from his website:
As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.
I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.
It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy. I don’t want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country, and a winning strategy for our troops.
As many others have noted, this is one of those "non-apologetic apologies" that politicians and other public figures have become so adept at making. There must be a class on this stuff in PR agent school.
The gist of Kerry's statement is in the first sentence of the second paragraph, where Kerry says, "I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted ...." If that's true, then anyone who interpreted his words "correctly" must have been a mind reader. Here's what he actually said:
You know, education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard, and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.
What's to misinterpret? I'm willing to grant that Kerry might have misspoken, that he indeed "botched" a joke (something that he's apparently very good at--botching, that is), but he said what he said, and he's still trying to spin the story to make it seem like he said something else.Here, in my opinion, is what a real apology would look like:
I want to make it clear to everyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was never intended to refer to any troop.Now, that's an apology that a "real man" would make.
I misspoke. What I said was not what I meant to say. In short, I screwed up. I sincerely regret that my words implied anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.
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