For perhaps the first time since 1992,* a public figure has actually admitted making a mistake!
“Words can sting and hurt,” [Sen. Christopher] Dodd [D-CT] told The Associated Press Wednesday. “If in any way, in my referencing the Civil War, I offended anyone, I apologize.”
He said he was trying to make the point that Byrd would have been a good senator at any point, and “I was not thinking of the KKK or his vote against the Civil Rights Act.”
Add my voice to the chorus of those who are congratulating Dodd for doing, umm, what seems self-evident. (Have we really sunk so low that we cheer the admission of obvious blunders? We have? Well, carry on then.)
*I’m pegging it to the start of the Clinton era, yes.
What mistake did Clinton ever make?
…hmmm???
What mistake did Clinton ever make?
Feeling sarcastic this morning?
What mistake did Clinton ever make?
Just because it is recent news the Gorelick letter comes to mind.
“I’m pegging it to the start of the Clinton era, yes.”
Damn shame Clinton never apologized. or acknowledged his own wrong-doing.
Right, Gary. After all, if Clinton had apologized for his relatively trivial sins, the Republicans would thereafter have shut up about them and quit bringing them up all the time years later.
Looks like it’s time for an update, von…
Note how the mainstream media downplays it and only gives it any attention after he apologized. Note also that the NAACP said an apology wasn’t warranted. Says it all, doesn’t it.
Clinton “apologized” for Rwanda, but even in his new op-ed about it, no apology for lying about his knowledge of it at the time.
After all, if Clinton had apologized for his relatively trivial sins,
I’m sorry, perjury is not a “trivial sin”. It goes to the heart of the common law legal system. Ya think perjury ain’t a big deal? Move to France. (No, really, civil law is far more forgiving.)
Looks like it’s time for an update, von…
What, has Dodd retracted his apology? Has it become any less self-evident that one should apologize for one’s mistakes?
von, my positive reaction comes not from Dodd apologizing and offering amends for a mistake but from Dodd apologizing and offering amends for something that many people would not have considered a mistake in the first place.
Von, I did say relatively trivial.
Yes, Clinton lied under oath when asked if he’d ever had sex with Monica Lewinsky, and that was wrong. (OTOH, the Republican party wasted millions of public money in order to find an excuse to charge Clinton with something, and that was equally wrong in a different moral direction.)
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice, all have told worse lies with far more impact on the US and on the world than Clinton’s lie about a blowjob. And unlike Clinton, none of them show any signs of remorse or any inclination to admit their lies and apologize for them.
I found these contemporary summaries of the Whitewater investigation/Monica Lewinsky enlightening reading – I think the Plaid Adder makes a vital point when she says “The important thing is that the investigation itself creates the impeachable offense. Clinton could have been getting regularly serviced by carloads of Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders with perfect impunity, and never have a care in the world about being impeached–as long as you’re not paying for it, extramarital sex (or extramarital nooky, which is really what we’re looking at here) is not in itself a crime, unless you have the misfortune to live in North Carolina. Even lying about it is not a crime until you do it under oath. It’s once you have a full-scale investigation going on that private failings become high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Dodd on Byrd; Lott on Strom — both were mild, general, tributes to 2 old men, who once did very bad things.
However, only the hypersensitive and PC crowd is yappin’ about apologies.
I would say, of the gazillion things for which gov’t officials SHOULD apologize, these trivial remarks don’t nearly rise to the level.
My 2 cents.
Not to rehash controversial history, but as I recall the events in question, Clinton testified about Monica under a rather lawyerly definition of sex submitted by the Jones side – a definition under which it seemed to me he answered truthfully. I recall Clinton’s lawyer asking the judge for Clinton to be allowed to just say what happened instead of being questioned in an untransparent fashion. It seemed like a “gotcha” unrelated to the Jones matter.
This is probably generational, but when I was in college not long before that time, oral sex was not considered sex by many people – a certain bet failed to be decided on that basis.
As a side issue for the lawyers here, I seem to recall the contention that testimony at one of these pre-trial hearings was considered of lesser seriousness than later – that defendants at trial were allowed to amend their previous statements without prejudice (though I guess there must be fairly narrow wiggle room). I.e., Clinton could have said at trial on this issue, “I did such-and-such and thought under the definition in force that I was testifying accurately, but now I see that that was wrong”, and there would have been no grounds for a perjury motion. Of course he was at a disadvantage in the discussed and subsequent legal wrangling due to the political situation.
Navy, my $0.02 is that Dodd’s comment was just a normal “failure to engage brain” but Lott’s comment was part of a pattern.
“What mistake did Clinton ever make?”
As God is my witness, I swear that the first thing that popped into my head when I read that this morning was “backing down on ending discrimination against gays in the military”.
Moe, you aiming at sainthood or something? And if you get there, will you have any pull with the IRS?
All the good sainthood gigs are taken; I’d have to settle for patron saint of allergy medications, or something. Besides, I’m not actually that nice a person. I have my mean side.
“I have my mean side.”
Just trying to do my part to keep it in check.