Long Island Representative Peter King may not care about fact checking, but I have a different question. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that President Obama did start his presidency with a global Apology Tour. Isn’t that standard public relations? After British Petroleum leaked a metric gigaton of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, didn’t they change executives and tell everyone that they were sorry? George W. Bush’s presidency was a global disaster that we are still struggling to recover from. Isn’t pretty much everyone, from the foreclosed family in Reno to the Tsonga tribesmen of Mozambique, entitled to a profuse and protracted apology? I mean, can we get serious for a moment? George W. Bush was so bad that his actual existence was airbrushed out of the last two Republican political conventions, one of which occurred while he was still in office!
So, if Obama perhaps suggested that some mistakes might have been made, is that really anything that the world didn’t already know? Isn’t the problem more that he didn’t say we’re sorry and he didn’t apologize on our behalf rather than that he did?
Rep. Peter King thinks that it’s wrong to apologize to people even if they are very deserving of an apology because it shows weakness and invites attack. But show me an example of this being true in any area of daily life. Let’s say that you accidentally cut someone off with your car or you mistakenly step on their shoe or you absent-mindedly slam a door in their face. Are you more or less likely to be attacked for those actions if you immediately and profusely apologize?
While there are some predators in the world who are on the prowl for someone weak who they can attack, it is far more common that conflicts are instigated. You can be a very peaceful person, but if someone bumps into you and then doesn’t even give you the courtesy of an apology, you’re probably going to get pretty annoyed with that person. Setting up Gitmo, legalizing torture, invading and occupying Iraq under false pretenses, and destroying the global economy were quite a bit worse than merely bumping into someone. Doing stuff like that makes people very angry, and some of them will want to make you feel some of the same pain that you’ve dished out. This is especially true if you refuse to acknowledge that you did anything wrong or harmed anyone in the process.
The truth is that Obama did not do an Apology Tour. He probably should have.
