Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Apologies

While I was gallivanting around the Big Apple with the Fam, I would occasionally check into TPM to see what was shaking, and well aside from Chris Christie's jowls, it seems that the theme for Thursday and Friday was "APOLOGIZE, DAMNIT!"

Everywhere around the Internets, people had said or done things that upset other people.  Those people (the second group) got all shouty and demandy for apologies from the first group.

My favorite was when some intern at MSNBC suggested that conservatives wouldn't like an interracial couple in a Cheerios ad.  That's absurd, conservatives hate the KIDS of interracial couples, not the parents themselves.  Anyway, MSNBC apologized and fired the guy.  Just like Fox News does when someone on their network says something stupid or inflammatory about a Democrat or a liberal.

I have to agree with Dan Savage, you aren't going to appease anyone with an apology.  I did think Melissa Harris-Perry's apology was quite heartfelt, but there were reasons WHY she was apologizing from her own life story.

If you are sorry, apologize.  If you aren't, don't.

But don't think when political figures demand apologies from you, that you will actually change anyone's mind by doing so.

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