A few years ago Howie Mandel hosted a television game show based on greed called Deal Or No Deal? but that has nothing to do with this post. The inspiration for this post comes straight from one of today's headlines.
Here's the headline:
NY Governor Cuomo Makes Pitiful Plea -- 'Truly Sorry' If Words, Actions Were 'Misinterpreted'
and here is the article that followed:
NY Governor Andrew Cuomo said he was 'truly sorry' if "some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation."
"To be clear I never inappropriately touched anybody and I never propositioned anybody and I never intended to make anyone feel uncomfortable," Cuomo said.
"I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended. I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that," he said.
The article continued.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, "There should be an independent review of these allegations. They're serious. It was hard to read that story as a woman. And that process should move forward as quickly as possible and that's something we all support and the president supports."
Also, she said Joe Biden believes [two former state staffers who accused Cuomo of sexual harrassment on the job] "should be treated with respect and dignity."
Well, that's enough of that.
Today a third woman who has never been employed by the governor or the state of New York came forward with another allegation.
Things are not looking good for Andrew Cuomo, the 63-year-old governor of the State of New York and the son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo.
I am not here to add to his woes, to discuss his guilt or innocence (that's for a jury to decide after examining the evidence), or to throw him under the bus. He is 63, not 21, so he is certainly old enough to know better, especially in today's climate. Maybe he will turn out to have been just another dirty old man. That is for others to decide.
I am here to analyze his apology.
My position (and I hope you agree) is that when someone says, "I'm sorry if..." it is not an apology at all. "I'm sorry that..." may not be an apology either; it depends on the words one says after that. Both are attempts to divert attention from oneself and put blame on the offended person.
I'm sorry if I offended you is not an apology.
I'm sorry if you got your feelings hurt is not an apology.
I'm sorry if you took it the wrong way is not an apology.
I'm sorry that you feel that way is not an apology.
I'm truly sorry that some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted is not an apology.
Do you agree or disagree?
Since there are many examples online of true apologies, I am not going to show you any. You can look them up yourself if you think you need to, and maybe even if you think you don't.
Lefties are always right and many of them have no morals.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Each apology example you gave puts the blame back on the alleged victim. IF YOU were not accepting of me and my actions I will assuage your guilt by pointing out that you are wrong.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry if statements are ways to conceal the thing that the speaker/writer IS truly sorry about. He or she is sorry that they have been found out.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right on this one. They are using weasel words to get themselves out of trouble. the sad thing is that many times it works.
ReplyDeleteI agree, anytime the blame goes back to who has been Victimized, it marginalizes what the perpetrator did and tries to make it seem okay and merely a 'misinterpretation or offense taken' by the Victim, rather than the Act itself being just Wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt's not an apology and that kind of garbage further traumatises victims.
ReplyDeleteI know you're not wantig to get into whether he's guilty or otherwise but if i had to make a call based on the apology....well, it's not looking great
I agree, but I do think he is sorry - that he was caught!
ReplyDeleteI agree, it doesn't seem like much of an apology.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Ravi Zacharias would have apologized and repented before it was too late? Does the good cancel out the evil? I think not unless there is true repentance.
Thanks to all eight of you who commented. We all seem to be in agreement here, which is pretty scary in itself.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem like much of an apology. I have no idea what he did. The general assumption made here seems to be that whatever it was he did he's guilty. Life is never that simple.
ReplyDeleteThe weather has been perfect for the garden so I've been out of Blogland for a while and may be for another few days. However you have now given me my next post. Thank you.
Graham,.I thought that news travels fast, but if you have no idea what he did then the town of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides off the coast of the Scottish mainland is even more remote that I imagined.
DeleteI left my comment about your next post in the comments section of that post rather than, as my old blogging friend Putz would have done, here in the comment section of this post. As a result, this post’s comment stream is far less confusing than it might have become.
Oddly, Bob, the Mayor of NY doesn't tend to make the headlines in the UK. Your thinly veiled insult is duly noted.
DeleteGraham, an insult was not intended but I see now how it could have been received as such. I am sorry.
DeleteBill DeBlasio is the mayor of New York City. Andrew Cuomo, the one we’ve been talking about, is the governor of New York State. Six women have now come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour against Cuomo, and calls for his impeachment, even from members of his own party, are increasing. In this country, even Harry’s and Meghan’s little chat with Oprah didn’t bump him from the newscasts.
Thank you for that information about Bill DeBlasio. I should say that in my original comment I was really talking about "apologies' in general rather than his 'apology' when I said 'life is never that simple'.
Delete"Oddly, Bob, the Mayor of NY doesn't tend to make the headlines in the UK."
DeleteUnder Trump, the mayor of London certainly made the news here. Now, of course, we have your Duchess of Sussex whose endless whining is of far more importance to Americans than anything else on earth.
His apologies read, "I'm sorry you feel as you do, because I am finding it terribly inconvenient to come up with ways to ameliorate the damage without accepting responsibility for my cringe-worthy lasciviousness."
ReplyDelete"I have no idea what he did. The general assumption made here seems to be that whatever it was he did he's guilty. Life is never that simple."
So, there's enough blame to go around, would you say? When my wife, Peggy, was a teacher, three adolescent boys accosted her in an empty hallway after school. While two pinned her arms, the third held a knife on her, and, when she struggled to get away, she received a minor--and, I think, accidental--cut. When the principal let the boys off with a spanking, Peggy appealed to the school board. Nothing being "that simple" and Peggy having been the only adult in the situation, the members of the board were primarily interested in understanding what she had done to make adolescent boys think they could get away with playing out their rape fantasies on their teacher (not that used such a horrid word). So, what HAD Peggy done? She had stupidly been pretty; she had completely erred in being a relative stranger to the area; she had made the grievous mistake of being 23 but looking 16; she had egregiously stayed after school to grade papers (instead of leaving at the final bell, as the board informed her that she should have done for the welfare of all concerned); and she had put herself in the way of boys who hailed from prominent families whereas she had recently moved to Bogue Chitto (Mississippi) from San Antonio, Texas. Most of all, at 5'3" and 115 pounds, Peggy had found herself helpless against three overgrown football players with a knife. Clearly, the board said, everyone bore a share of responsibility for the incident (nothing being so simple as to assign blame), the boys were, legally speaking, children, while she was a grown woman who should have known better than to let things get so out of hand that such a thing could happen. They then confirmed the boys' perception that they could terrorize women and get away with it by letting the boys get away with it. They finally ended the meeting by suggesting to Peggy that she learn from the incident that it might never happen again. The lawyer that she saw the next morning disagreed with the board, but, sadly, Peggy refused to follow my counsel and bring assault charges.
Snowbrush, what happened to Peggy is horrendous, both during and after the incident. Knowing nothing about Bogue Chitto, Mississippi, I looked it up in Wikipedia and learned that it is (a) a town of 887 on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians Reservation and the population is 93% Choctaw, and (b) it is within ten miles of the site of the well-known murders of three civil rights activists in 1964 by members of the KKK. It is hard for me to visualize “prominent families’ living on an Indian Reservation. I also wonder whether any of the members of KKK were also members of the school board. I wish you hadn’t told me this story but now I am stuck with it.
DeleteI didn't realize--prior to reading your comment--that there are two Bogue Chittos. The one of which I speak is in southern Lincoln County, which is nowhere near either an Indian reservation or the site of the '64 murders. "My" Bogue Chitto bears the name of a river (a creek really) that flows out of the Ross Barnett Reservoir, a reservoir which is, I would guess, fifty miles from the location of the murders. At its southern end, the Bogue Chitto forms the boundary between Mississippi and Louisiana.
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