Friday, May 07, 2004

I'm sure he's sorry...

...but contrary to what you may have heard, Bush still hasn't apologized.

Well, maybe he has. My American Heritage Dictionary offers three variants for the word, and the third seems to fit his profession of sorrow to Jordanian King Abdullah.

a-pol-o-gy, n. - ...3. An inferior substitute.

When Bush told Abdullah that he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families," as well as sorry that the American character is so badly misunderstood by people who have learned that it includes a sadistic element, it was an apology only to the degree that it was an inferiour substitue for acceptance of the real moral responsibility that accrues to him for the crimes of his subordinates. But his regrets weren't even directed to the offended parties, and he accepted no blame, confessed no fault.

Lambert at Corrente gets it, even if Bush doesn't.

"Bush seems to think that 'sorry' means 'feeling bad,' " Lambert writes. "He 'feels bad' about the torture, and he 'feels bad' that people think ill of America, and somehow that all evens things out. It doesn't. I don't care if Bush feels bad; I want him to accept responsibility and show penitence. That might mean something."

Bush won't accept responsibility, so he can't meaninfully apologize. That make us responsible for his removal, so we won't owe a sincere apology to our children, and theirs, and the world we inhabit.

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