The
Perfect "Political Apology" is Anything But...
By Peter F. Goolpacy, PhD
This classic example of a political apology was recently extended by
John Kerry, who was 'forced' to apologize after being accused (primarily
by Republicans) of insulting the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.
He claims to have been trying to make a joke about George Bush's intelligence,
but he screwed up.
"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you
do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do
well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
He then went on to offer the following political apology:
"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...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 [was] never
intended to refer to any troop,"
Later in the week, on
MSNBC's Don Imus radio show, John Kerry went further by
stating,
"I left out one word. I left out the word 'us.' They got 'us' stuck.
Instead of that, I said, 'They got stuck,' and they're taking advantage of
it."
Although John Kerry certainly acknowledged his mistake, he failed to take
responsibility for offending so many people. As is often the case with
political figures worried about appearing weak, fallible, insensitive or
just plain wrong Kerry's excuse ended up insulting the very people who
expected (and deserved) the apology.
He blamed these same service members
for not being bright enough to understand the joke, and expressed regret
that people didn't "get" his sense of humor. Why should he be held
responsible for others being so slow, he reasoned?
Obviously the demands for Kerry's apology were politically motivated, and I
suspect there were just as many people who believed John Kerry had no reason to
say sorry or ask for forgiveness. The problem, of course, is that most of
these people were probably Democrats who "understood" Kerry's "obvious" and
"brilliant" insult to George Bush.
Unfortunately, politicians and their advisers have become so adept at
parsing and re-framing the "political-sound-bite" that they almost
never deliver a good political apology. They're so convinced of their own importance and
so worried about the political damage following a "perfect" apology that
they often ignore the political costs of a partial apology.
Weak, politically motivated apologies or a "political apology" typically goes through stages—if the
20 percent version of the partial apology doesn't work then it's usually
followed by the 50 percent version, and then the 80 percent version if that
fails. Each time officials are forced to add more ingredients of the perfect
apology their foes declare victory.
But in most cases, if the original apology included all (100%) of the
ingredients we outline here, the results would almost always be less painful
and less costly.
Unfortunately, the best apologies are always the last ones to be
issued. What
is so fascinating about the rise in the number of public apologies over the
last few years is that although public figures clearly understand their
importance few really know how to do it well.
Learn about Political Apologies and American
Democracy. Or
return from...
A Political Apology to Famous Apologies
|
