In The Blogs

On Accepting Apologies

| Thu Aug. 6, 2009 8:44 AM PDT

In an episode of "Mouthpiece Theater" last week, Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post joked about what brands various luminaries might be served at future beer summits. For Hillary Clinton, they suggested "Mad Bitch."

Ha ha ha! Well, Mouthpiece Theater has been cancelled and Milbank and Cillizza have apologized. But Bob Somerby isn't happy:

We’ve long been aware of Milbank’s oddness. But you haven’t seen “corporate media clueless chic” until you read the apology the bosses beat out of Cillizza. Each fellow was required to feign regret; below, you see how Christopher did it. So you’ll know, his blog at the Post is called “The Fix:”

CILLIZZA (8/5/09): I would like to personally apologize for the content in last Friday's video as it was inconsistent not only with the Post brand but, more important and personal to me, the Fix brand which I have worked so hard to cultivate.

Good God, that’s awful! Calling a woman a “bitch” is, at this level, remarkably stupid. Unless you’re a modern, upper-end “journalist,” in which case the practice is inconsistent with a long string of brands! Never mind the denigration of the woman in question! The real harm here was carelessly done to Cillizza’s beloved Fix brand!

This is something that bugs me. I'm not quite as willing to forgive and forget this episode as MoJo's editor is, but neither do I think it was exactly a hanging offense. Jokes go awry all the time. More to the point, though, Cillizza apologized. But these days, that's never good enough. Either it's a "non-apology apology" or it's not groveling enough or it's not sincere enough or it came too late or it's an unforgivable crime and no apology can ever erase the stain.

Or something. Get over it, folks. Cillizza screwed up, but he groveled plenty for my taste. "I would like to personally apologize" is admirably direct, and there's nothing wrong with also acknowledging that his reputation is going to take a hit from this.

I've mentioned this before, but I sometimes wonder why anybody ever bothers to apologize for anything anymore since it never seems to do any good. I remember that someone in comments to that post suggested that apologies should be done for their own sake, not in hopes of getting forgiveness. That's an admirable sentiment, but it's also fabulously innocent of human nature. Like it or not, public apologies are hard to do, and people hope to get something out them. If all they get instead is more grief, they'll quit bothering with them. Learning how to accept an apology is as important as learning how to give one.

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Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here.

Comments

Sorry

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 9:00 AM PDT.

I'm with Bob here. The apology was to the brand, not to Clinton or fair-minded people.

But you realize that it

Submitted by piminnowcheez (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 9:01 AM PDT.

But you realize that it would be totally inconsistent with Somerby's brand to accept Cilliza's apology?

I think that Somerby is a national treasure but it goes along with his particular schtick that everybody is bound to be at least annoyed by him sooner or later.

I think the need to

Submitted by John Hansen (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 9:08 AM PDT.

I think the need to apologize and forgive is clearly lacking in this country. Obama missed a perfect example to be a leader. He instead stuck to his "holier than thou" I''ll teach you attitude.

You see, both actions of apology and forgiveness require a humility that serves society well and keeps us civil.

The POTUS stepped in it when he accused Officer Crowley of "acting stupidly" when he had no facts. Yet the POTUS never apologized. He sanctimoniously treated it like he all of the sudden had a "teaching moment" to offer from on high. Obama may have coolness under pressure, but he is sincerely lacking in humility.

Both the actions of apology and forgiveness require very few words, but they require very great character. Obama has failed to be an example here.

Actually, Obama had enough

Submitted by cracked (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 7:04 PM PDT.

Actually, Obama had enough facts to know that Officer Crowley had acted stupidly and he was proved correct. The charges were dropped as clearly just payback bullying for rudeness received.

Apologizing isn't really

Submitted by strannix (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 9:14 AM PDT.

Apologizing isn't really that hard. You say, "That was a lapse in judgment and obviously pointlessly misogynistic. I apologize."

The end.

Exactly

Submitted by ajw_93 on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 10:12 AM PDT.

That would've been fine. Though I have to admit that I nearly fell off my sofa laughing when Milbank turned up on Countown in that orange hunting vest. IIRC, he got into trouble for that one, too. Funny is subjective stuff!

The fact that these guys

Submitted by Katya (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 9:34 AM PDT.

The fact that these guys thought there was NOTHING WRONG with calling the Secretary of State a "mad bitch" is what bothers me and a lot of people I know. Okay, whoopie, they apologized....after people pointed out to them how damn offensive and inappropriate it was. If no one had done that, they would never have apologized....and I highly doubt even now they think it was really that bad. It's NOT just a joke gone awry and to call it that is to be incredibly dismissive of the attitude that still prevails among a lot of men - and sadly, a lot of men who call themselves progressive - which is that women in power who aren't meek are TOTAL BITCHEZ YO AHAHHAHAHAHA. Oh, but hey, they're pro-choice, so it's totally cool, right? This is the Asher Roth school of thought, that mocking and insults are ok if they're all ironic and shit. Sorry...no.

And IMO, anyone who thinks this was just a joke that people didn't get, and who doesn't see it as profoundly inappropriate to use a gendered slur against a highranking female politician (or any woman, really), has some major issues to work on. We may be equal on a certain level, but women are still constantly fighting for their rights - to their bodies, to their autonomy, to equal pay, etc - and fighting for recognition of their merits and worth, fighting to get that recognition without their looks or fuckability being brought into it. Clinton is someone who has been fighting those fights for a long damn time...and then she gets called a bitch by some fucking upper-class white men because OMGZ so funny!! And those of us who were offended are told to calm the hell down, it wasn't that bad. Yep - no one needs feminism anymore! Hooray!

Exactly

Submitted by thersites on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 1:34 PM PDT.

Substitute "n****er" for "b*tch" and make it a joke about a high-ranking African-American official. What apology would you accept for the mindset that thought it would be funny?

"I am sorry I didn't look clever."

Submitted by Jim (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 9:35 AM PDT.

Is that an apology?

Where's the apology exactly?

Submitted by Pinko Punko (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 9:37 AM PDT.

Kevin, I'm sorry but you're being dense. There is an apology here, but not an appropriate one, so there is nothing wrong in continuing to criticize.

Millbank

Submitted by A Midwesterner (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 10:27 AM PDT.

I don't read Millbank because of the unrelenting tone of sarcasm but his disregard for the possibility that some politicians may actually be honest and sincere. I stopped reading Maureen Dowd not only for her sarcastic tone but for her unrelenting hatred for the Clintons. Ick. How do these people keep their op/ed positions?

I guess I missed the apology

Submitted by Cranky Observer (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 10:33 AM PDT.

> More to the point, though, Cillizza apologized. But these days, that's never good
> enough. Either it's a "non-apology apology" or it's not groveling enough or it's not
> sincere enough or it came too late or it's an unforgivable crime and no apology can
> ever erase the stain.

I guess I missed the apology in the quoted words - could you please point it out to me Kevin?

Cranky

because...

Submitted by WoofWoof on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 10:42 AM PDT.

I sometimes wonder why anybody ever bothers to apologize for anything anymore since it never seems to do any good

Because there's other people in the world besides the professional offense-takers. The segment was stupid, but I appreciate that Cillizza apologized, and in the future I'll continue to take him seriously and read his stuff. Milbank, as far as I can tell, has not apologized, and for me that's probably the last straw with him, I'll consciously avoid his work from here on out. Now, I'm just one person, but obviously this stuff can add up.

The daily outrage on both the right and the left keeps a lot of the media (including a whole lot of blogs) busy, and as you say, apologies are always completely lost on that crowd. But there's other people out here also.

I actually thought

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 10:48 AM PDT.

I actually thought Cillizza's apology was spot-on. I think Sec. Clinton does not to hear an apology from those two idiots for being called a bitch. She can handle that devastating blow to her self-esteem.

Cillizza apologized profusely for the real crime in all of this: those Mouthpiece Theater videos SUCKED! They were so lame and witless that they resorted to, well, calling Sec. Clinton a mad bitch. That was just about the apex of cleverness for those painful-to-watch videos.

Read Cillizza's full apology and you'll see that the talk about "harming the brand" is really him apologizing for trying to do comedy when he sucks so badly at it, and promising to just stick to what he is competent at in the future.

It seems to me that Cillizza exactly gets what he did wrong. He never meant that his true belief is that Sec. Clinton is a bitch, but he did believe it would be funny to make that joke, and he was terribly wrong about that, and he's sorry. That's good enough for me.

Stupid

Submitted by everett.craven on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 11:01 AM PDT.

Clearly it takes a lot of anger to be upset by this stuff. This is a small trivial event and the outrage over it is likewise small and trivial. This is not a defense of their joke, which is just plain unfunny. It is unfunny in so many ways, but not because it is offensive. Some of the funniest material out there is deeply offensive to someone, but yet it manages to be hilarious. This was just name calling and very lame name-calling at that.

I think the basic point should be that these videos were awful and this was a needed coup de grace.

Mouthpiece Theater

Submitted by karog on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 11:06 AM PDT.

The only thing Mouthpiece Theater convinced me of is that Milbank and Cillizza are better comedians than they are journalists. And that is not because I think they are funny.

Personally, I get less

Submitted by B on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 11:45 AM PDT.

Personally, I get less annoyed at stupid humor than I do at news organizations treating seriously the concept of a Clinton donor cabal pulling strings in the state department.

I think you need to step

Submitted by OhioBoy on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 12:27 PM PDT.

I think you need to step back and reconsider what the actual offense was here. They called Hillary Clinton a bitch. That is NO DIFFERENT than calling Obama a nigger; both turn the subject of the slur into a non-person, based on nothing more than physical characteristics outside of their control. In so doing, they harmed not only Hillary Clinton, but every woman in the country, by underlining the fact that they are second-class citizens. The purpose of extracting an apology from them is to try to undo some of that damage, to get them to admit that they were wrong, that women are fully human, and must be judged on their character, not their genitalia. If they don't apologize for THAT, then the harm they did remains undone. I don't work for the Washington Post, and have never heard of The Fix. I don't care if their brands are damaged or not. But I am the son of a woman, the husband of a woman, the friend of many women. It's the harm that was done to THEM that I care about, and that harm remains, and has yet to be apologized form.

Thanks for this comment. I

Submitted by cracked (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 7:12 PM PDT.

Thanks for this comment. I felt this but couldn't get handle on it.

Yeah Kevin, you are being

Submitted by Trippp on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 1:17 PM PDT.

Yeah Kevin, you are being dense here. At the least an apology must acknowledge the wrongdoing. Using the phrase "I apologize" without acknowledging the wrongdoing is meaningless.

In addition, if one is asking for forgiveness, one should also state the intention to not repeat the offense.

Forgiveness may or may not come at that point.

This is not rocket science here. I'm surprised you don't know this.

I suspect the non-apology apology was invented by the legal profession to try to give the appearance of an apology while not acknowledging any wrongdoing, but I don't know for sure when the practice started.

Tripp

Tripp, you're a freakin' moron

Submitted by thersites on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 1:48 PM PDT.

Oh?

I'm sorry you were offended, and I regret the damage I've done to the 'thersites' brand.

See? Now why would Tripp still be annoyed with me? I apologized!

(Tripp, you know I think well of you, and so I think can insult you, just as an example.)

"I would like to personally apologize" is admirably direct

Submitted by Michael (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 2:06 PM PDT.

if and only if there's a full stop at the end. Not if it continues with a lot of creepy self-serving ad-man blather about the perpetrator's f***ing brand, for Chrissake. What are you thinking, Kevin?

faked up

Submitted by cld (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 3:10 PM PDT.

I think they're both a couple of puerile dweebs.

What's galling is the 'apology' is so self-evidently faked up.

It's more insulting than the insult because they think they're putting something over.

'You need help with that? Let's try a little sugar, then we can watch Dora the Explorer.'

Missed it again!

Submitted by Quaker in a Basement (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 3:11 PM PDT.

Kevin, you're missing Mr. Somerby's point quite cluelessly.

Yes, he points out that Cillizza's apology was poorly made. Why does he say so? Because Cillizza apologized not to the target of the "mad bitch" jape but to fellow members of the insular, self-interested clique that calls itself the Washington press.

It's just one more small example of the single point Somerby has been hammering for nearly nine years now: the press corps is made up of strange, alien life forms.

Comparison

Submitted by Quaker in a Basement (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 3:14 PM PDT.

As a point of comparison, check Mara Liasson's walkback of her "mini-Katrina" gaffe.

thersites

Submitted by Trippp on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 3:48 PM PDT.

You insult me by suggesting I would take offense by being used as an example.

For the record I have been insulted by the ultimate insult Master - my sister who is two years younger than me, is at least as smart as me, who is very observant, and who more or less hated my guts during our teen years. I happily returned the favor as best I could.

In my experience younger siblings are excellent for toughening up the skin. Teen sons come in a close second.

Tripp

I apologize

Submitted by thersites on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 4:44 PM PDT.

for not realizing what a touchy fellow Tripp is.

Anyone with half a brain would have realized my qualifier was, not for Tripp's benefit but for those who may not know us.

Back at PA I was once blasted for referring to a good friend of ours as a weenie.

Geez!

Submitted by Paul Camp (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 6:52 PM PDT.

"Either it's a "non-apology apology" or it's not groveling enough or it's not sincere enough or it came too late or it's an unforgivable crime and no apology can ever erase the stain."

No.

No no no no no. I splained this elebenty times.

When you apologize, you must apologize for the thing you did, not for something else entirely. Cilizza apologizes for something other than the offense and that is what makes it a diversion, not an apology.

The biggest problem may be

Submitted by cracked (not verified) on Thu Aug. 6, 2009 7:09 PM PDT.

The biggest problem may be that it sounded purely gratuitous since neither of those guys is remotely funny or has anything funny to say.

Ever been around a non-native speaker learning English (or the other way round) and have them get fixated on trying out the swear words they have learned. Even if you are prone to swearing, it's painful when they are used out of proper context purely for effect of the words themselves.

It's up there with Cheney telling congressman to *(&^(&$^% off on the floor of congress. Just seems so hypocritical from someone with pretensions to being better than the subject.