This is our fourth post in a row about a GOOD apology. A SorryWatch record!

Republican political strategist Mark McKinnon has said he’s sorry to cyclist Greg LeMond for repeatedly slurring his name and career. It’s not the best apology on the planet (it’s no Klosterman), but it’s pretty dang fine.

Trust me. I have a hat.

In an open letter in The Daily Beast, the spin doctor and former George Bush advisor apologizes for his role in smearing LeMond’s name over the years.

Dear Greg.

Lance won’t say it but I will. I apologize.

I believed in Lance’s lie. My wife had a very deadly form of cancer, and his story was a powerful elixir that helped us get through it. We called Annie “Lance Armstrong in a skirt.”

And then for 10 years I served on the board of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, later the Livestrong Foundation, which did—and still does—truly great and innovative work for those living with and through cancer.

But through all of those years, I was complicit in pushing the myth. And all I really knew about you was what I heard through Lance, Inc. I don’t have to tell you it was not flattering.

McKinnon goes on to list LeMond’s racing triumphs and praise his personal integrity. (Read the letter here.) Just as Armstrong competed after cancer, LeMond fought back — and won two Tour de France titles — after a health crisis; he was shot in a hunting accident and still has lead buckshot peppering his body.

Youthful non-cheater Greg LeMond

McKinnon concludes:

You are the undisputed greatest American bike rider ever, and among the greatest cyclists of all time. But more than that, you are a Hall of Fame Survivor. First ballot. You suffered through pain, lies, humiliation, bankruptcy, embarrassment, serious injury, health problems, and more.

For years your bright light was darkened by a blizzard of lies, cheating and innuendo.

And despite all this, from all the objective accounts that I’ve now read about you, unlike Lance, you are honest, humble and kind.

For all this, and more, I say to all the people suffering with and through cancer, or any other disease or fight, if you want a role model for inspiration, you should look to a true hero, Greg LeMond.

Thanks, Greg.

Belatedly,

Mark McKinnon

This is menschy. But it could go further. Armstrong — perhaps our site’s poster boy for abysmal apologizing — back in the day said horrid things about LeMond, a steadfast anti-doping crusader. (LeMond almost certainly had a case for suing Armstrong for defamation, but he hasn’t acted on it…at least so far.) McKinnon’s apology would have been stronger if he’d said precisely what his role was in the “blizzard of lies,” and what specifically he regrets saying or doing. In apologies, precision in naming the offense and in spelling out one’s own badness are the best way to go. And if — as commenters are hypothesizing — McKinnon has a book or new political campaign on the horizon for which he’s looking to clean up his own image, or if McKinnon has information that LeMond is at last planning to sue Armstrong for slandering his name and costing him his contract with Trek Bicycles, well, McKinnon should disclose that too.

Finally, McKinnon portrays himself in this piece as wide-eyed and gullible in believing everything Lance said about LeMond. Most top-level political operatives are not, shall we say, this naive. There could be a lot more ownership in this letter.

BUT. Given what we know, right now, at this point in time, McKinnon has offered a good apology. With a few edits, it could be a great one.

LeMond today, returning to bike design 

ALSO, McKinnon inexplicably failed to list, among LeMond’s many achievements, his triumphant appearance as Greg LeMond in the Tour de Ferb episode of Phineas and Ferb.

Tour de Ferb spoiler alert. Oh, Greg.