Back in 2000, the shootings at Columbine High School left me sick and angry. I wrote a short story about fighting back, which I read at a summer solstice gathering in San Francisco. The story was well-received.
Later, a man cornered me in the kitchen and asked, smiling, “So tell me, have you ever killed anyone with your bare hands?”
I bit my tongue before Not yet could escape, and finally responded, “I’m not going to answer that.” I found him presumptuous and rude. Dignifying that question with any answer would reward bad behavior.
My interrogator, however, seemed to believe he had extracted an admission from me, and spent the next fifteen minutes smirking triumphantly and continuing to probe. Finally, quoting Georgette Heyer, I said, “Since you will have it, then I take leave to tell you your manners belong in a tap-room.” Then I left.
The question, “Have you ever killed anyone?” should only be asked between intimates, and face to face.
This ought to be basic manners.
One good rule about manners comes from Robert E. Lee (not usually one of my favorite people), who said, “A gentleman never gives offense unintentionally.” This rule seems to have been forgotten. Another rule about manners: when you have done wrong, apologize promptly and fully. You may explain why you did or said something wrong, but you may not attempt to weasel out of the admission of wrongdoing. Otherwise, you have not apologized. You have compounded the insult.
Ace already expressed his dissatisfaction, Charles in his usual understated way has summed up my disgust, and many others have weighed in on the subject from both left and right. Fine, this is an important matter and ought to be discussed and debated. Here, though, let us consider Senator Richard Durbin’s so-called apology, issued today on the Senate floor in the light of the standards articulated above, shall we?
"I am sorry if anything I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time. Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy.
"I am also sorry if anything I said cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military ... I never ever intended any disrespect for them. Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line to them I extend my heartfelt apology," Durbin said, choking on his words.
This is the heart of this “apology”. The words look fine, at first glance. But look deeper.
Durbin says, “I am sorry if anything I said caused any offense and pain.” Not, “I am sorry that I offended and hurt you.” One apologizes because one caused offense and pain. The word “if” throws blame for the offense back on the listener – it’s your fault, because you are irrationally sensitive. Durbin continues, and compounds the offense, with, “Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy.”
Really, sir? Then why didn’t you say, “I made a comparison that demeaned the tragedy of the Holocaust, and I wish to take back my words.” The prepared sentence he spoke implies that his comparison did not demean or diminish the horror of the Nazis’ death camps.
The next paragraph is worse. Let us review his original statement:
"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," Durbin said last week.
I wrote an essay around this speech by Durbin, and explained that there is no equivalence. The e-mail from August of 2004 does not evoke a lovely summer evening; it pales in comparison to the regimes he cites. This statement is so divorced from the realities of the situations as to invite my contempt.
This statement spits on the honor of the armed forces, present and former.
This statement sneers at the horrors of the 20th Century, and its innumerable victims.
Now, to atone for these words would require an eloquence not seen in this country since the death of Lincoln, and a depth of contrition no modern politician seems capable of feeling. We cannot hold Durbin to the standard of Lincoln. We can hold him to the standards of a proper apology.
He fails this minimal standard.
As in the first paragraph of his apology, he uses the weasel word “if.” “I am also sorry if anything I said cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military ...” No, Senator. The only acceptable phrasing is, I am also sorry that I cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military. His remarks were not off-the-cuff, but prepared in advance, and no rational person can read the Senator’s speech and not believe his words were taken exactly as they were intended.
“Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line to them I extend my heartfelt apology.”
Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line?
Senator Durbin, that’s not an apology. It’s an additional insult. There was a time when that sentence alone would have made men and women with a proper sense of decency demand the Senator’s retirement from public life.
True apologies are sincere, do not incorporate weasel words, do not blame the offended party for being offended, and do no attempt to dismiss the pain and offense. One may explain; one may not excuse.
In other words, one does not begin the explanation with the word but.
So when Durbin adds that he felt that he raised legitimate concerns about the treatment of detainees at Camp X-ray, we hear the “but” loud and clear. When coupled with his remarks on Thursday and Friday, that the public (including me and you) didn’t understand his historical analogies, it is clear to me that Durbin harbors a deep contempt for the American people. The Senator proffered a deliberate insult to the armed forces, then heaped onto it an insult to the intelligence and perception of those Americans who took umbrage. I am well acquainted with the practices of the gulag, of the concentration camps, and of the killing fields. I understood Durbin’s historical analogies very well. I utterly reject those comparisons; I take all parts of the insult as my own.
I count myself one of the injured parties.
Part of good manners is to accept expressions of remorse in the spirit they are offered. This means that we must exercise our judgment, and decide when the apology is sincere. Usually, one does not parse an apology. I would really like to believe in Durbin’s contrition, that he is heartily sorry, and has a firm purpose of amendment. Unfortunately, I cannot.
This so-called apology, Senator Durbin, compounds the original insult.
Apology not accepted, Senator Durbin.