No Apologies, Please

The call for an apology — you hear this from Democrats whenever someone in the Bush administration or a Republican in Congress has said or done something "outrageous" or "offensive". Karl Rove's politicization of 9/11 is outrageous; Senator Santorum's new book is offensive to women. They must apologize immediately, and perhaps even resign, we are told.

Something has always bothered me about this obsession with apologies. First, apologies rarely happen, and the failure bring them about makes those calling for them look weak and ineffectual. Second, I really don't want apologies most of the time. Karl Rove? I hope he repeats his hateful 9/11 shtick every chance he gets. And the more Rick Santorum spouts off about his medieval family values, the better it is for Democrats.

But more importantly, I think, calling for an apology turns the misdeed into merely a momentary lapse of otherwise sound judgment, and the apology into an act of redemption. "I made a mistake. I'm sorry if anyone was offended by what I said." Problem solved, slate cleaned. The implication is that the person is basically good; otherwise, what value could the apology have?

Even when the path to redemption isn't taken, the Republican noise machine can often turn these personal vices into virtues. Consider John Bolton, the least diplomatically-minded person Bush could have nominated for the UN post, a rogue bureaucrat who bullies his subordinates and only cares about getting his way. "At the UN," conservatives tell us, "we need someone like Bolton, who'll fight hard for US interests against a hostile world, and reform the institution in the process. He's not bad, he's just tough. And by opposing him, you're just showing how weak you are."

What the Republicans learned long ago is that you don't win many points by simply pointing out that your opponents are people who do bad things occasionally. People forgive their leaders quite easily these days, especially if a "bad is good" counter-narrative can be even half-convincingly spun. Rather, the GOP has used a much broader brush to paint all Democrats and liberals as inherently bad people: "They are not like us normal people — they hate America, they hate the Bible, and most importantly, they hate you. And they'll never change."

To politically destroy an individual, it's not only necessary to point out their flaws, but you must transform those flaws into signifiers of that person's true nature. Take the example of John Kerry. He wasn't just a flip-flopper. He was a liberal elitist who didn't share the values of most Americans, so he just told people what he thought they wanted to hear to try to trick them into voting for him. Kerry wasn't portrayed as a good man who told a few lies; he was portrayed as a man who had contempt for the American people and had to lie to cover that up.

I'm not categorically against all apology campaigns, but it seems to me that most of our time should be spent working shoring up our basic nature and tearing down theirs. And I'm not just saying that because I think it would be the politically smart thing to do — I'm saying it because I believe that Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and George Bush are evil men who value nothing more than their own power and use it to help their powerful friends, and to hell with everyone else. I don't want to DeLay, Frist, or Bush to apologize for anything — I just don't want them running the country.