Who’s sorry now?

Don’t you wish politicians and others forced to apologize for saying something stupid didn’t use the words, “if I offended anyone” as a preamble?The most recent of these conditional apologies comes from state Rep. DebraLee Hovey, the no longer obscure legislator from the towns of Monroe, and unfortunately, Newtown.Ms. Hovey, the proud possessor of an NRA endorsement, was out of town, in Florida, when former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona audaciously visited Newtown’s grieving families without its representative’s knowledge or permission. For those of you who may have missed it, here is Debra Lee’s elegant tribute to the still recovering Ms. Giffords, severely wounded by a gunman who killed six in Arizona two years ago. It began with the demand, “Gaby Gifford, stay out of my towns.”She expanded her greeting by claiming Giffords, who is as credibly against gun violence as anyone could be, was making a political visit and as proof, reminded her Facebook readers that, “The Lt. Gov. was there, Blumenthall was there and ALL political types KNOW it is courteous to let sitting Reps know when another political is in their District. So....There was pure political motives.”If I put in all the required (sics), the rhythm of the rant would be destroyed but I’m sure you may have noticed a few, beginning with the names of Giffords and Blumenthal.The Hovey harangue may have appealed to Second Amendment hard-liners but it appalled the rest of America, so she quickly removed it from Facebook and issued an apology in which she admitted to being “insensitive” and if that insensitivity “offended anyone, I truly apologize.” “If I offended anyone” joins a long line of weasel apologies that I first noticed during the Nixon Administration when press secretary Ron Ziegler was kept quite busy spinning lies from the president’s team. It’s rather fitting then, in the Nixon Centennial year, that we explore these contributions to the English tongue.I know it was Ziegler who was first to characterize a lie as “inoperative” in order to make it cease to exist and he was surely among the first Nixonites to explain something was true “at this point in time,” thereby indicating it may not be so an hour from now.It’s not clear when the first pol replaced “I lied” with “I misspoke” but that little evasion has been around for a long time and these guys never get tired of misspeaking.The New York Times credits President Reagan with pioneering what is now a golden oldie in the obfuscation field when he substituted “I was wrong” with “mistakes were made.” Those mistakes included selling arms to Iran in order to finance rebels in Nicaragua. John Sununu, who’s getting on but was still active enough to have gotten his foot in his mouth during the Romney campaign, used the “mistakes were made” apology when he was caught using the government’s dime for trips home during the first Bush’s administration.It’s not only Republicans, of course. President Clinton said mistakes were made when he invited the nation’s senior banking regulator to a meeting with prominent bankers and his chief fund raiser. He even pointed a finger, sort of, at who made the mistakes, saying, “Mistakes were made here by people who either did it deliberately or inadvertently.” He reports, you decide. There are many more of these ways out of accepting responsibility without really doing so. We know the chastened party “never intended to hurt anyone” or sometimes, he was simply “having a bad day” and a real favorite today, “my comments were taken out of context.”Then, there’s one Rep. Hovey might have used, “I made a poor choice of words,” as her words were poorly chosen, misspelled and put together without regard for the rules of grammar. The result caused one to wonder if she was out in the Florida sun too long with those little drinks with the umbrellas. And, in fairness, let’s not forget that sometimes “if I offended anyone” can be appropriate. When the singer Janet Jackson suffered the loss of part of her costume during a Super Bowl performance, a press agent said he was “sorry if anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance.”Clearly, there were those in the football audience who may have been offended and those who may not and the latter neither required nor expected an apology. And, of course, by inventing the term “wardrobe malfunction,’” he enriched the language, something Rep. Hovey couldn’t manage. Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.