Hello, Los Angeles Times! Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not apologize to Donald Trump, despite your headline saying she did.
Nope. And here’s your problematic lead (or lede, if we wish to sound all JOURNALISTICAL):
That’s not an apology, Los Angeles Times. A statement of regret is not an apology. An apology has a recipient; regret is entirely internal. Regret is about self, not other.
Here’s RBG’s full written statement, released by the Supreme Court, via the Wall Street Journal:
“On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised, and I regret making them. Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.”
That’s no apology. That’s closer to what the kids call a “sick burn.” Boom, ya roasted, they would say merrily, though probably not now since I just said it and I am an elderly white lady. Ginsburg is being subtly snarky here. She doesn’t mention Trump’s name. She doesn’t say she’s sorry to him. She doesn’t say what precisely she said that she’s not-apologizing for. (Specifically she called him egotistical, inconsistent and a faker, and said she despaired for the country if Trump were elected, for those keeping score.) We hope you regular readers know by now that saying precisely what you did wrong is an essential part of an apology. What Ruth is saying she did wrong is not the fact that she called the Republican presidential nominee an egomaniacal lying sack of bankruptcy notices, but rather that she did not behave professionally. She’s irked at herself; she doesn’t even deign to THINK about the person she’s accused of maligning. What makes this such a good bit of sniffy superiority is that she’s saying she has not lived up to her own judicial standards; she is not saying Trump is NOT actually a tangerine tufted doofus.
In other criticisms of the media, I would like to inform the fine British people at Metro that the Playboy model who Snapchatted a picture of a naked non-model in her gym’s locker room has not apologized! Or even “apologised”!
No. And I do not apologize to the English peoples for telling them their fancypants spelling is wrong because I am Murican, dammit.
Here’s the model’s statement:
If you don’t wish to click on that, and indeed, why would you, Mathers says: “I just wanted to acknowledge a photo that I accidentally posted here on Snapchat earlier today and let you guys know that that was absolutely wrong, and not what I meant to do, and I have chosen to do what I do for a living because I love the female body and I know that body shaming is wrong and that’s not what I’m about — that’s not the type of person that I am. That photo was taken to be part of a personal conversation with a girlfriend, and because I am new to Snapchat, I really didn’t realize that I had posted it and that was a huge mistake. I know that I’ve upset a lot of people out there but please, please believe me when I say that’s not the type of person I am. I have never done this before and will never do it again; you have my word.”
classy
SO COMPLETELY NOT AN APOLOGY. “Acknowledging” something isn’t apologizing for it. Mathers owes an apology to the woman she victimized and mocked and whose privacy she invaded (and maybe also to the gym, L.A. Fitness, which I hope will ban Mathers for life). She regrets posting a mean, hurtful, invasive photo to Snapchat rather than sending a mean, hurtful, invasive photo to her friend. And as we have noted many times here on SorryWatch, saying “that’s not who I am” after doing something horrible is deluded. You said it. You did it. You are you. Thus it is indeed precisely who you are. Mathers is much more concerned about her image — people are mad at her! — than she is about her own bullying behavior.
We’ve noticed a huge increase in columnists and blogs pointing out lousy apologies lately, which we would like to think is our civilizing (or civilising, if you are British) influence at work. But the mainstream media has not left off calling things that are not apologies — things that are not even vaguely apology-shaped objects (ASOs) — apologies. We understand the space constraints of headlines. “Apologizes” takes up less space than “issues a statement of regret.” But precision is important, and understanding what makes an apology is a mission. For some of us.
ADDENDUM, 7/15/16:
Looking at Ms Mathers’ Twitter stream, she’s now following the classic route and declaring herself the real victim here. Her being investigated by the LAPD (for invasion of privacy, I’m guessing?) is “unfair,” and so is her being suspended from her job (because of all the kerfuffle?), and she’s going to “stay strong.” My personal favorite: someone tweeted that her non-apology was lame because she was apologizing only for posting the picture, not for taking it in the first place, and her response was “What is the problem?” But of course everything’s all right, you guys, because she’s going to volunteer to work with teens on responsible use of social media. Ugh.