Last night on NBC News, Brian Williams read aloud a non-apology from Nancy Snyderman, the network’s medical correspondent, who violated the terms of her quarantine after a photographer for her team in Liberia contracted ebola.

My pocket square is purely decorative; it’s not to sneeze ebola into.

According to the blog Planet Princeton (and confirmed by TMZ),  Snyderman was seen out and about after NBC News President Deborah Turness had said she was under home confinement until the timeframe in which symptoms could show up had passed. Turness had said, “While they are deemed to be at low risk, we have agreed with state and local health authorities that our team will not come to work, and they will stay at home taking their temperatures twice daily and staying in touch with the local health authorities for the remainder of the recommended 21-day period.” (But TMZ noted that Snyderman did not stay home; she went for takeout, triggering the superb headline, “I’D LIKE EBOLA SOUP, PLEASE”.)

Not ebola soup.

Now let’s examine the language of Snyderman’s horrid non-apology. Her words are in important-tv-personage boldface; our commentary is in humble-normal-people regular font.

“While under voluntary (VOLUNTARY!) quarantine guidelines (not rules! guidelines, you paranoid freaks!), which called for our team to avoid public contact for 21 days, members of our group (let’s not name names) violated those guidelines and understand that our (sure, you’ve only heard about ME heading out on a very important, nay, heroic, soupquest, but it could be others; you don’t know, and maybe I don’t know — who knows?) quarantine is now mandatory (because you people are, as mentioned, paranoid freaks) until 21 days have passed. We remain healthy and our temperatures are normal. (Some might say this is lovely but not entirely relevant since the whole POINT of staying away from contact with others for 21 days is that it might take that long to show symptoms, but trust me, I play a doctor on TV. And I last practiced medicine in the early ’90s; not much has changed since then, except now we have email. And stupid annoying bloggers.)

“As a health professional (I have been on television since the early ’80s) I know that we have no symptoms (I JUST NEEDED SOUP) and pose no risk to the public (as everyone knows, having no symptoms invariably means posing no risk; just ask Typhoid Mary!), but I am deeply sorry for the concerns (I’m not sorry for breaking the quarantine; I’m not sorry for anything I personally did, since I said “we” throughout the first paragraph, and indeed, I did not name the thing I am personally accused of doing, aka this farshtunkiner soup run; I will not do the essential apology work of taking ownership, showing I understand the impact of my actions; displaying empathy or making amends; BUT WHATEVS PEOPLE I’m sorry for your misplaced selfish “concerns” about your own health) this episode caused (passive voice, BAD APOLOGY BINGO!). We are thrilled that Ashoka is getting better (let me prove my nobility by rhetorically grabbing your chin and forcing you to look at something else, but it’s, like, a totally noble something else) and our thoughts continue to be with the thousands affected by Ebola (NOT ME) whose stories we all went to cover (let me remind you again of my higher calling and vital work that you are distracting me from with your silly little “safety precautions”).”

No, Nancy. No soup for you.

Would C. Everett Koop have allowed me to grasp his wrist in 1998 if I had ebola?