Public Apologies Revisited

I meant to post this earlier, but work gets in the way of my blogging. While flipping through channels during the Pistons magnificent win in game six, I stumbled across the tail end of Durbin's apology for this quote:

(After reading FBI operative quote describing Gitmo) "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

While I strongly disagree with the comparison, this post is not about the definition of torture (which can be found at redhurtmachine or standingoutinthecold, it's about the reaction from other congressmen to Durbin's apology. It's about reactions such as this:

"All of us, I believe, who have had the opportunity to serve in public life from time to time have said things that we deeply regret. I know that I have," McCain said. "I would like to say to (Durbin), you did the right thing, the courageous thing, and I believe we can put this issue behind us."

I am tired of hearing these kind of accolades everytime a public official is forced to retract a statement due to negative political fallout. Offering a public apology under duress isn't about doing a courageous, difficult act, it's about saving your own ass- plain and simple. Now if Gary Condit were to come out and finally admit to the whole Chandra Levy incident (assuming he was responsible), that would be a courageous admission. Courage, the "state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution" is about doing something for good while placing yourself at risk, not saying you're sorry because you got caught.

The best analogy from my own life involves a rest stop incident in fourth grade. A couple of my friends and I were traveling to some kind of competition (athletic or otherwise) and decided to create some mayhem in a rest stop bathroom. While flushing, we discovered that pulling the handle many times would cause the urinals to overflow, so we proceeded to pump every toilet until the floor was covered in stinking, brackish water. While fleeing laughing, we were busted by a disabled janitor who saw the mess and told my mom. She was obviously pissed and made us go apologize to the janitor, while he cleaned up the mess. After we stuttered through our apologies, we left. There was no tearful reconciliation with the janitor, no John McCain-esque state employee to congratulate us on our humility and bravery, and no Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, or Joe Liebermans to compete for the final tambourine spot in the inevetible drum-circle Kum-by-ya, just a couple of kids embarassed because they got caught, and a janitor up to his ankles in shit.