Cynical Nation

Michael Graham offers a primer on apologies and how to make them. It appears the senator from Illinois could use the help.

1--You have to believe you've done something wrong, not just that someone else thinks you were wrong.

2--You have to apologize for what you did, not what other people think of what you did.

3--You have to acknowledge your bad behavior, not speculate about how others might view your behavior.

Dick Durbin's "apology" fails all of these tests. All he had to say was "I was wrong to compare our soldiers to Nazis. That's not true, I know it, and I shouldn't have said it. I'm sorry." How hard is that? Instead, we got this:

"Some may believe my remarks crossed the line....I'm also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military."

That's it? "IF I said something" and "SOME may believe?" Dick, what do YOU believe? That's the only relevant question. Why not Al Qaeda saying "IF we blew somebody up, and if any of those people didn't deserve it, then we apologize?" "Some say that crashing airplanes into office buildings is a bad thing, and we regret offending them."