Rupert Murdoch was snarling away on Twitter: “Told UK’s Cameron receiving scumbag celebrities pushing for even more privacy laws. Trust the toffs! Transparency under attack. Bad.”

Americans don’t talk much about toffs. First definition I found said they are “member[s] of the upper classes”. So in the UK you can apparently be a member of the 1% – or actually, the .1% – and not be considered a member of the upper class.

A madly rich media owner, Murdoch has been fighting government investigations into phone-hacking by his British newspapers. He positions this as a fight for press freedom. For transparency!

Not a toff. So there’s that.

I mentioned this to the nearest UK-residing journalist with a particular interest in privacy, Wendy Grossman, who happened to be sitting across the table with a gordita. She said, “One of the problems with comments like Murdoch’s is that they send the message to the general British public that privacy laws are merely about protecting rich hypocritical celebrities from press exposure in the public interest. Whereas the reality is that the privacy laws that organizations like the Open Rights Group, Privacy International, and Liberty are pushing for, are for protecting the rights of individuals from many kinds of intrusion such as that perpetrated by government, commercial organizations, and yes, occasionally the press.”

That’s just one of the problems. Someone tweeted to Murdoch, “Scumbags? And your journalists and executives are what?” Perhaps he was thinking of how Murdoch employees at News of the World hacked into the phone of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, a kidnap and murder victim, while police were still searching for her.

Murdoch defended his employees. “They don’t get arrested for indecency on major LA highways! Or abandon love child’s.” That’s a reference to actor Hugh Grant, his 1995 lewd conduct arrest in Los Angeles, and his baby daughter with a woman to whom he’s not married. It’s also relevant that Grant has become a privacy activist and won libel suits against newspapers.

Do not make Hugh Grant hit you with a golf club.

Then Murdoch defended his scumbag remark. “I did not say all celebrities were scumbags. Check my tweet. And apologies to any who misunderstood.”

Ah, “to any who misunderstood” – a classic case of a poisoned apology. The fault wasn’t Murdoch’s, the fault was yours, for misunderstanding. Really, you should be apologizing to him.

Hugh Grant didn’t like being accused of abandoning his child and threatened legal action. A new tweet issued from Murdoch, this one seeming as if it might have been drafted by an aide, or someone who has a slightly firmer grip on the concept of apology. “Hugh Grant states that he is deeply involved in his daughter’s life – I accept that, regret tweet on the matter. Apologies to both parents.”

Not awful given the space limitation. But because of the space limitation, more tweets would have been appropriate. “I was wrong.” “I should not have said that.” “Bad.” “That was a scumbag thing to say.”

It’s weird how apologizing for scumbag accusations takes more space than making them.