Barton’s apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward at this morning’s Congressional hearing  for the Obama administration’s “shakedown” of BP lacked many of the flaws one usually sees in a public apology.  It sounded sincere and unequivocal, did not make any excuses and did not blame BP for it’s own role in the underlying matter.  The problem, however, is that the “shakedown” for which Barton was apologizing was actually a perfectly reasonable demand that BP pay its share for causing one of the worst environmental disasters in history.

In a rare moment of good taste and political sense, the Republican leadership demanded Barton retract his apology, and issue a new apology for the apology.  (Finally answering the question of how outrageous a Republican member of Congress’s statement must be before Republican leadership will consider it to be out of line.)  Barton’s apology for the apology provides an interesting combination of what are perhaps the two most common and obnoxious species of bad public apologies:  “I’m sorry if anyone was offended” and “My comments were misinterpreted.”  Barton indeed claims his words were misconstrued (how could anyone belief that apologizing to BP meant he was sympathetic to BP?), and then goes on to conclude “I want to apologize for that misconstruction.”  The “I want to apologize for that misconstruction,” phrasing, like “I’m sorry if anyone was offended,”  is interesting because the speaker is essentially apologizing to the listener on the listener’s own behalf.  Even if the problem really were with how Barton’s comments were construed by others, and not that they were out of line with reality and indicative of political corruption, then he should at least be apologizing for his own poor word choice.  Or, of course, he could have avoided this all entirely by not siding with the oil company in an oil spill.

-AR

A quality public apology requires only two parts.  1)  Admit what you said/did was wrong; and 2) say you’re sorry.  And if you want to throw in some unhinged stream of conscience stuff on your love of the Appalachian Trail, so much the better.

Sadly, apologizers seem to almost always feel the need to go one step further, offering hollow excuses that undermine the first two parts.  Take, for example, Tony Kornheiser’s recent apology for sexist comments he made about Hannah Storm’s outfit at the Olympics.  Kornheiser correctly recognizes his remarks were intemperate and stupid, and offers an apology to Storm.  But he then feels the need to add the line, “If you put a live microphone in front of somebody, eventually that person will say something wrong.”  At least two problems with this statement:  1) while I cannot account for every statement ever made by everyone who’s spent significant time in front of a microphone, I’m pretty sure it’s not true, at least to the extent that “wrong”=”offensive”; and 2) to the extent that it is true, it’s meaningless and unnecessary.  Imagine how ridiculous a similar statement would be in another context:  you say something hurtful to a close friend, apologize, but then add “you know, if you and I are going to talk every day, eventually I’m going to say something wrong.”

Even worse is the apology/non-apology, where what seems like an apology is really a disingenuous and implausible explanation for why there’s no need to apologize.  The most common variation of this is “My words were taken out of context.”  My favorite example comes from an ESPN the Magazine article I read a few years back, in which an NFL player admitted to telling his wife “I’ll be just like OJ and you’ll be Nicole,” but claimed these words were taken out of context.  While it’s literally true that every time a quote is reproduced it’s taken out of context, it’s hard to imagine a context that would excuse that statement.

Closely related to implausible claims that a quote was taken “out of context” are implausible claims that a quote was misinterpreted.  Such was the excuse of Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall for his contention that disabled children are God’s way of punishing women for abortions.  For a full evisceration of Marshall and the implausibility of his “apology,” see the always wonderful Kate Harding.

Sadly, I have no recent examples of the worst form of public apology, the “I’m sorry if anyone was offended,” which essentially translates to “Suck it up, crybabies.”  But I will highlight a particularly egregious example:  last year Senator Jim Bunning apologized for predicting that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would soon be dead, but his apology was conditioned on Justice Ginsburg being offended.

One last note:  even if you get the words right and avoid counterproductive excuses and qualifications, it helps if you aren’t just awkwardly reading a statement and occasionally raising the volume of your voice to indicate anger.

-AR