Imagine your kid coming to you with this "apology":
"Mom and Dad, I'm sorry if you're offended that I appeared to have broken the garage window with an apparent baseball. I'm also sorry if anything I reportedly said in anger cast a negative light on your parenting abilities.
"Some in our neighborhood think, after our scene in the middle of the street, that my remarks crossed the line. To them, I extend heartfelt apologies."
Would you buy this? Notice there is no actual owning up to doing or saying anything wrong, just a phony apology for other's impressions.
That pretty much sums up Sen. Durbin's "apology" on Tuesday on the Senate floor for last week comparing U.S. personnel in the Guantanamo Bay military detention center to "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime – Pol Pot or others."
Sen. Durbin, D-Ill., apparently overcame his unwillingness to take a stab at an apology after Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley Jr. publicly badgered him to do it. An Illinois politician doesn't cross the Chicago machine if he wants to keep his Senate parking spot.
It was inevitable that Mr. Durbin would have to come up with something. There was also serious talk of the Senate censuring him, which a good many Americans would have supported as "a good start" for dealing with this.
Perhaps the most disingenuous part of the "apology" was Mr. Durbin's statement after praising our "soldiers ... your son and daughter. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them. Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them, I extend my heartfelt apologies."
Why should our soldiers be offended by a comparison to the murderous thugs who killed millions? In any case, it's only an impression that "some may believe." Notice that it's only their belief, not that he actually crossed the line. Durbin is careful to exclude himself from that company, so he apparently still thinks he did nothing wrong.
If someone were giving awards for non-apology apologies, Durbin would have competition only from Jane Fonda, who has been regretting, by degrees, her treasonous visit to communist Hanoi during the Vietnam War, but never really apologizing.
The closest she has come is to offer the "if I have offended anyone" line, plus she said recently that sitting for a photo opportunity in the seat of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun was not smart. Keep in mind that the men she visited in the Hanoi Hilton – one of whom famously winked in Morse code before the cell door slammed again – were severely beaten after her departure.
As Muslim propaganda mills crank up all over the world to use Sen. Durbin's remarks as recruitment literature for new terrorists, we would have to assume that somebody, somewhere, was offended by his remarks. At least, that's our belief, and we're sticking to it.
Robert Knight is director of the Culture & Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.
posted on June 23, 2005 04:58:10 PM new
At least Durbin did apologize. It was more than the two Republicans who used similar comparisons have done. It was more than Cheney did when he used the "F" word.
It is more than Bush and company has done for lying about the Iraq War in the first place.
Naturally Republicans don't feel the apology was genuine, they do not even know what an apology is.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
----------------------------------
President George Bush: "Over time the truth will come out."
President George Bush: "Our people are going to find out the truth, and the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind."
Bush was right. The truth did come out and the facts are he misled Congress and the American people about the reasons we should go to war in Iraq.
posted on June 23, 2005 05:38:41 PM new
They don't WANT to apologize....and they certainly haven't changed their support of our enemies over our own soldiers.
Dems Allegedly 'Conducting Guerrilla Warfare on Troops'
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Correspondent
June 23, 2005
(CNSNews.com) -
Congressional Democrats are engaged in a "growing pattern" of demoralizing American troops, according to House Republican leaders who Wednesday showed no willingness to let the controversial comments of Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin die.
"While our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line each day to defend our safety and to protect our freedoms, I am sure the least they expect is the backing and the support of their leaders at home," said Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Republican Conference.
"To the contrary," Pryce added, "what we've seen from Democrat leaders is a growing pattern of jumping at any chance to point the finger at our own troops, bending over backwards to promote the interests of terror-camp detainees while dragging our military's honored reputation through the mud."
Pryce was reacting to recent comments made by Durbin, the second ranking Democrat in the Senate, about the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Durbin initially compared the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the way Nazis, the Stalin-led Soviet Union and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia handled prisoners. Following much criticism, including from members of his own party, Durbin apologized on the floor of the Senate Tuesday.
Wednesday, Pryce slammed both Durbin and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for their handling of the Guantanamo Bay issue. "For Leader Pelosi and Senator Durbin, if prison-camp detainees are given anything other than pillow-top mattresses or lean-cut filet mignon, they're being treated inhumanely and our military is to blame," Pryce said.
Jennifer Crider, press secretary to Pelosi, told Cybercast News Service that Pryce's remarks amounted to "a ridiculous statement, completely not based on fact." Pelosi on Tuesday had joined with one of her California Democrat colleagues, Rep. Henry Waxman, in introducing legislation aimed at establishing an independent commission to investigate the alleged abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who joined Pryce at the press conference, told Cybercast News Service that it "is just inconceivable and truly incorrigible that in the midst of the war, that the Democratic leaders would be conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops.
He also labeled the Pelosi/Waxman proposal for an independent commission "simply another example of some Democrat leaders trusting the words of terrorists over the proven decency of U.S. troops.
"The American taxpayer is already providing accommodations for detainees, who are currently more comfortable than most of our men and women in uniform," Wilson added.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on June 23, 2005 09:16:56 PM new At least Durbin did apologize.
Bull Ship. Durbin never appologized, he made a excuse. He never said "I'm sorry for the statement I made". That would have been an appology.
Durban's appology consisted of the following statement:
[i]"Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line," Durbin said. "To them I extend my heartfelt apologies." Durbin also apologized directly to the U.S. military. "They're the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them," he said.[i/]
"Mr. President, I've come to understand that was a poor choice of words," said Durbin. "Last Friday, I tried to make this very clear that I understood that those analogies - the Nazis, Soviets, and others - were poorly chosen. I issued a release, which I thought made my intentions and my innermost feelings as clear as I possibly could," added Durbin.
posted on June 25, 2005 06:36:34 AM newTo them I extend my heartfelt apologies
This is still more than any Republican member of Congress or the White House has said in the past 6 years.
and they certainly haven't changed their support of our enemies over our own soldiers
It is obvious Bush wanted the enemies to win otherwise he would have given our troops the proper equipment to fight this war. Why else would Bush send our troops into battle without having armor platted Humvees?
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
----------------------------------
President George Bush: "Over time the truth will come out."
President George Bush: "Our people are going to find out the truth, and the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind."
Bush was right. The truth did come out and the facts are he misled Congress and the American people about the reasons we should go to war in Iraq.
posted on June 25, 2005 11:52:06 AM new
"I am not questioning Sen. Dick Durbin's patriotism, at least not for the first couple of paragraphs. Instead, I'll begin by questioning his sanity. ... Spot the odd one out: (1) mass starvation, (2) gas chambers, (3) mountains of skulls, (4) lousy infidel pop music at full volume. One of these is not the same as the others, and Mr. Durbin doesn't have the excuse of being some airhead celeb or an Ivy League professor. He's the Senate Judiciary Committee's second-ranking Democrat. Don't they have an insanity clause?" --Mark Steyn ++
A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones that need the advice."
- Bill Cosby
