Sean Hannity. Who is this person? I hardly know. Because I avoid conflict. Because I am serenely deadheading the lavender and verbena. Because I try to alternate inhaling and exhaling in a calm way. Because I have never consumed any show that this person is on. Because all this, I have no grudge against Hannity. Until now. (Though apparently John Cleese has feelings.)

Apparently he’s a huge Donald Trump booster. Wikipedia says Hannity’s a TV and radio host, an author, and a political commentator. Doesn’t call him a reporter. Yeah, I’ve heard people mention him, but somehow never heard anyone admiring his journalistic chops.

In fact, look here. He said “I never claimed to be a journalist.”

That’s good, since he disgraces himself from a reporting-the-facts standpoint, to judge by recent events.

On a recent radio broadcast Hannity repeated a series of obviously phony assertions: that Michelle Obama had removed – “scrubbed” – all mentions of Hillary Clinton from her Twitter account. Then that Elizabeth Warren had done the same. That Barack Obama had done the same. And unfollowed her. Burn!

Hannity said, “Wow. That means they know it’s huge. You know why? Because Obama’s implicated. He’s implicated here and he’s pissed. You know what his legacy might be? Jail.”

Oh please.

His source was a far-right website whose name I don’t feel like typing. Some listeners passed it on. Allegedly a Hannity producer “confirmed” it.

THESE ARE THINGS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN CHECKED IN MINUTES IF NOT SECONDS.

These statements were so demonstrably false, so easily rebutted, that Hannity apologized. In his way. After the show, he tweeted:

Correction. Live on radio I read a gateway pundit report that @MichelleObama had deleted mentions of HRC. And a listener said BHO and. Elizabeth Warren did same. Fact is they didn’t. I humbly apologize. Live radio.

Terrible apology. He shifts responsibility. He minimizes the importance of spreading false rumors. Also “humbly” is falsified by his next line: “Live radio.” Oh yeah. ‘I’m so important and timely that I can’t help telling lies!’

CNN Money asked about this. He emailed, “I received an email LIVE ON THE AIR that linked a Gateway Pundit article. I questioned the accuracy of it on the air. I asked my producer on the air if it was true. She said it was. I also received a listener IM saying that they saw the same. Then THE listener mentioned that there was a report about the other 2.

“Bottom line it was brought up in an insignificant way. I was dealing with more important issues like HRC crimes and lies and how CNN has been colluding with the Clinton campaign and CHEATING Bernie Sanders.”

You’ll notice this is not an apology. It’s more explanation that shifts responsibility (to a producer and A LISTENER IM). Much more minimizing: it was insignificant! I was on the air! I was talking about vital stuff! (Because he loves Sanders? I doubt it.) And getting out the Trump message about “HRC crimes and lies.” On the air! I’m on the air!

On a later radio show he had this to say:

I also want to… Unlike the media, you ever notice when they make a correction, the story’s on A1. The correction’s on page A38, paragraph four, right-hand column, and buried. But we made a mistake on the program. Usually, – and by the way I’m not at all upset with Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit. And he sent a nice note to us. But he had seen a story and he put it up on his website, I reported it on the air that in fact Michelle Obama and then later it came out that maybe Barack, and Elizabeth Warren had actually wiped references to Hillary off their Twitter feeds. They did not. I was wrong. I humbly apologize.

Again with the humbly. Minimizing by means of “maybe.” It did not ‘come out that maybe.’ These were random rumors he was passing on although they could easily, quickly, have been checked.

An attack on “the media” in general for something that indeed is a fault, when it happens. SorryWatch often complains about this, when it happens. But it’s TAUGHT IN JOURNALISM SCHOOLS that corrections should go in the same place the mistake was placed. His vague accusation is just slop.

By the way, Hannity may not be a journalist, but his program is part of “the media.” And it would be more accurate to say that he repeated it on the air, not that he reported it.

Now that I know more about Hannity, I’m not happy. He’s a disgrace to Irish Americans. We Irish Americans are used to disgraces. Ask any McCarthy.

Then a very similar thing was drawn to our attention. (Darn it, I’m not finished with the lavender and verbena.)

Fox News. Bret Baier. Last week they reported that Hillary Clinton was in “imminent legal trouble,” that her private server had been hacked by “five foreign intelligence agencies” and that an FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation was “likely” to lead to an indictment after the election.

These things were widely repeated by people who liked the idea that they were true. But they were not true.

Baier defended his report, but conceded it was “inartfully” worded.

That didn’t work. He tried again. He said he had an anonymous source in the FBI (said to be heavily Trump-minded). He said he’d done an inartful bad job of explaining the implications of what his source said.

[I said] it was inartful, the way I answered the last question about whether the investigations would continue after the election. And I answered that, yes, our sources said it would. They would continue to likely an indictment. [sic] Well, that just wasn’t inartful, it was a mistake. And for that I’m sorry. I should have said, ‘They will continue to build their case.’… We stand by the sourcing on the ongoing active Clinton Foundation investigation, and are working to get sources with knowledge of the details on the record and on camera. Hopefully today.

Yeah, who’s making a case here?

God-awful apology. While he says it was a mistake, he also makes it clear that we should believe him and his ‘sources’ who will back him up on camera ANY SECOND NOW.

This is partisan, dishonest, faux-journalism, aided by a growing number of rumor websites calling themselves news websites. For some people it’s fun to make shit up, and it’s thrilling to convince people to repeat it, if you don’t give a damn about the consequences.

The idea seems to be to sling vast quantities of imaginary mud at Hillary Clinton. Doesn’t matter if the stuff you make up is ridiculous. Keep throwing ooze as fast as possible, repeating it, getting others to repeat it, then say, “Oops, apparently not proven.” “Sorry, turns out that was phony.” “How we regret last night’s slander – but NOW! NEW CHARGES! Which we haven’t checked or anything, but THIS COULD BE SERIOUS! Breaking! We’re on the air! We have reports that Hillary EATS KITTENS! ALIVE! It’s so disgusting that CHELSEA CUT HER OFF AND IS EVEN NOW SCRUBBING HER TWITTER ACCOUNT!!! Isn’t that something?! You know where people go who eat kittens alive? JAIL!!!”

In a recent debate between Republican and Democratic candidates for a senate seat from Illinois, neither candidate was a fan of Donald Trump. Tammy Duckworth, the challenger, is a Democrat. Incumbent Mark Kirk, a Republican, is not completely stupid. He originally endorsed Trump, but withdrew his endorsement in June, citing failure to evolve. That was after Trump said U.S. District Court judge Gonzalo Curiel was “a Mexican” (Curiel is American-born) who couldn’t be fair to Trump in a legal case Curiel is presiding over.

Good for Kirk. But it seems as if he shares some of Trump’s campaign style, the random poopoo-flinging ha-ha-ain’t-I-a-bad-boy rudeness part.

After he was heard to call Lindsey Graham “a bro with no ho” because “that’s what we’d say on the South Side” and because Graham’s single, he did apologize. But not when he called President Obama the “drug dealer-in-chief.”

When Duckworth said the drug dealer-in-chief remark was “unhinged,” Kirk said she was mocking stroke victims. Kirk had a stroke in 2012. Au contraire, Duckworth’s campaign replied, he’d been talking just as wildly before his stroke.

In the October 27th debate, Duckworth bragged about her family military tradition. “My family has served this nation in uniform, going back to the Revolution. I’m a daughter of the American Revolution. I’ve bled for this nation.” The context was knowing when and when not to go to war. “Families like mine are the ones that bleed first. But let’s make sure the American people understand what we are engaging in, and let’s hold our allies accountable, because we can’t do it all.”

Given 30 seconds to respond, Kirk merely snarked, “I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”

Duckworth ignored him. She didn’t speak or look at him.

Kirk knew Duckworth was born in Thailand. But perhaps he’d been too lazy to figure out that her mother was Thai (of Chinese descent), and her father was American from a family with, yes, a long military tradition.

More relevant than her family tradition was Duckworth’s own military service. It’s well-known she was seriously injured in Iraq when a helicopter she was co-piloting was hit by an RPG, leaving her a double amputee. With a Purple Heart, an Air Medal, and an Army Commendation Medal.

So Kirk’s zinger did not play well. There was much criticism. His office defended his remark: “Senator Kirk has consistently called Rep. Duckworth a war hero and honors her family’s service to this country. But [PIVOT!] that’s not what this debate was about. Rep. Duckworth lied about her legal troubles, was unable to defend her failures at the V.A., and then falsely attacked Senator Kirk over his record on supporting gay rights.”

Not exactly responsive to the you-Thai-folks-didn’t-fight-in-our-Revolution thing. Criticism continued. Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s current campaign manager, joined in. “The same Mark Kirk that unendorsed his party’s presidential nominee and called him out in paid ads? Gotcha. Good luck.”

Hillary Clinton tweeted, “…It’s really not that hard to grasp, @MarkKirk.”

So Kirk tweeted:

Sincere apologies to an American hero, Tammy Duckworth, and gratitude for her family’s service.

Not good. As is so common, he doesn’t say WHAT IT WAS he’s apologizing for. If you’re sorry for something, name it. Damn it.

Also, different forum. Apologies should be made in the same channel where the offense occurred. If you defamed someone on the front page, the retraction should appear on the front page, not back among the paid death announcements. If you insulted someone in sky-writing, you need to hire another plane to apologize. If you tweeted slime, then you can apologize in a tweet.

There’s another Kirk-Duckworth debate coming up November 4th. That would be the appropriate venue for Kirk to apologize for a remark made during a previous debate.

What odds that’ll happen?

On June 14th Horizon Science Academy, a charter school in Lorain, OH, issued a new dress code for its 500 students in kindergarten to 10^th grade. The kids wear uniforms, but a dress code is still needed.

It contained provisions that didn’t surprise anyone (no tattoos, pants can’t be baggy), provisions that impressed with the endless creativity of youth (no fake glasses, no graffiti on the uniform), and the following upsetting sentence:

“Afro-puffs and small twisted braids, with our [sic] without rubber bands are NOT permitted.”

Ooh.

People got upset. It looked like a racist policy directed at common hairstyles for unprocessed African-American hair. A policy which would make life difficult for parents trying to send kids out looking presentable. As Cipriana of Urban Bush Babes wrote, “As a child who wore afro puffs and braids… these styles were absolutely essential in having a life that was not consumed by hair, especially since I am a twin.”

Nancy Redd, of HuffPost Live, said “If I wasn’t allowed to wear braids or Afro-puffs when I was a kid my mom would have had to shave my whole head off.”

Leila Noelliste at Black Girl Long Hair (BGLH) wrote that “small twisted braids” probably means box braids, a “style that black girls have worn for generations. Afro-puffs are essentially the black version of the ponytail…, yet the rules do not have a ban on ponytails for students of other ethnicities.” (Her post includes charming photos of these styles.)

“Our hair is viewed as radical, funky or unruly in its natural state, and restrictions are sometimes placed on us in academic and professional settings that do not extend to our non-black counterparts.”

What was the school thinking?

A Daily Kos writer guessed that those who made the policy “just weren’t thinking.” And perhaps to people in the head office of the charter school chain “natural hair suggests all sorts of negative stereotypes.” (The chain is Concept Schools, with 31 charter schools in the Midwest.)

Urban Bush Babes wrote of “blatant sentiments expressed” in this policy about hair texture. “Incredible this is still even an issue that parents, children and adults still have to deal with today!”

I wondered if it had something to do with fear of gangs. But for such young kids?

Horizon promptly sent out a letter of apology:

Recently, our school sent home a draft copy of the dress code for the 2013-2014 school year. In the dress code information packet, a statement was made about not allowing a certain hairstyle. This information has offended many people and by no means did we have any intention of creating bias towards any of our students. We truly apologize for this mistake and want to thank everyone for their feedback about the information in our handbook.

Furthermore, we are taking the matter seriously and again apologize for any offense it may have caused. We are currently taking the necessary steps to correct the information and to prevent this from ever happening again. We will be sending the final updated version of our dress code as soon as possible.

Huh. Prompt, and taking responsibility for their mistake – but not saying what the mistake was. Was it thinking that box braids and Afro-puffs were unruly? Low-class? Political? This is an example of an apology that cries for explanation.

In search of enlightenment I watched a spectacularly crappy/fubar-plagued half-hour video on HuffPost Live, so you won’t need to. The best-informed guest was James Knight, who’s on Horizon’s advisory board and has 4 sons at the school. He had barely gotten as far as saying it was a misunderstanding (yeah yeah, don’t they always say that?) when the connection froze. Host Nancy Redd and her other 3 guests spent 25 minutes discussing the obnoxiousness of banning Afro-puffs and small braids, the terrible message that sends to little black girls, etc. before the link to Knight was fixed.

He said they’d made great points, but it really was a misunderstanding. “It had nothing to do with young African-American ladies. It was really more so addressing young African-American men here at the school.”

What!?! Yes. The whole deal seems to have been directed at “a couple young gentlemen here in the middle school. One part of the policy is that students have their shirts tucked in.” Horizon Science Academy aims for “a certain type of college prep culture here, and we just wanted the young men to be well-groomed. But the school made a mistake, and for that we’re very apologetic.”

If you look at the dress code with the upsetting rule (reproduced on BGLH), the previous rule says, “Hair is not to touch the collar of shirt – may be asked to cut it if administration deems it necessary (Boys only).” They forgot to write “Boys only” on the no-Afro-puffs/braids rule.

Jayson Bendik, Dean of Students at Horizon, was kind enough to talk on the phone about this flap. He confirmed that the rule was never meant to apply to girls. It came up because of a couple of boys in the middle school. “One of the problems we had that was recurring was unkempt hair,” he said. “There were two specific instances, one Caucasian, one African-American.” It had something to do with “pouffy” hair. “We put the absolutely wrong verbiage on it. It was an oversight, an absolute – it was NEVER any policy that tries to discriminate…. it was a mistake in word choice.”

No racism, no gang infiltration, just the eternal effort of school administrators to keep up with youthful self-expression.

So girls can wear Afro-puffs or braids. Can boys? “It just has to be well-groomed.”

 

A bunch of media sites said radio ranter and Tea Party darling Glenn Beck apologized to us. Did he?

The Daily Kos seemed to think it was an apology, but a “questionable” one. Their headline: “Glenn Beck apologizes for offending you with the truth.”

The New York Daily News was derisive, but led with “Firebrand radio host Glenn Beck apologized Thursday for ‘dividing’ the country with his conservative and controversial views in recent years.”

They called it a bad apology, in other words. What did he actually say?

Beck was getting a “Freedom of Speech” award from Talkers magazine, “The Bible of Talk Radio and the New Talk Media.” In his acceptance, he said, “For any role that I have played in dividing, I wish I could take it back,” he said. “I don’t wish I could take back the truth that was spoken, but perhaps — not ‘perhaps’ — many times I could have said it differently.”

I listened to this speech so you wouldn’t have to. (You’re welcome. Your presence here is thanks enough.) It was almost 19 minutes long and included props. Beck spoke up to defend the founding fathers and the Bill of Rights against unspecified critics, pointing out that no one is perfect.

He rambled about Nazis (he’s against them), and produced the “actual napkin that was on the Führer when they tried to kill him.” He spread it on his chest. The Nazis, Beck explained, opposed freedom of speech.

He linked himself to Martin Luther King – who wanted freedom of speech.

He returned to the subject of himself and his awesome responsibility. “For those in my position – unfortunately, I don’t know of a perfect person*. I don’t know of anybody who doesn’t look back on the last 10, 20 years of their life and say ‘Boy, if I just knew then what I know now….’”

(*Remember who else we established wasn’t a perfect person? Thomas Jefferson! And George Washington!)

“The times we live in are perilous. If I would have told you 10 years ago that I thought our country could be on the brink of absolute disaster and we would be at each other’s throats, I would have said to you, ‘Have you seen what happened last year? Have you seen how we all stood on the Capitol stairs together? That’s not possible!’ And yet here we are.”

Wait, what was this 2002 love-fest? I guess he was talking about Republican Party victories that year, when they took control of both House and Senate.

The next thing was the money quote: “And for any role that I have played in dividing, I wish I could take it back. I don’t wish I could take back the truth that was spoken. But perhaps – not ‘perhaps’ – many times I could have said it differently. But I wasn’t fully aware of the times that we’re living in.”

Luckily, there is “profound opportunity and profound light just on the horizon, ready to dawn.”

So is that an apology? And for what?

Having heard the speech, I think those lines aren’t about dividing the country. They’re about dividing conservatives. Shucks.

Okay then, is he vaguely apologizing to conservatives for being divisive? He wishes he had said the same things differently. But he couldn’t have known! In other words, he doesn’t take responsibility. He just wishes he had foreseen the future better.

So no, that’s not really an apology. That’s Glenn Beck – dropped by Fox News in 2011, still losing popularity – positioning himself as a kinder gentler uniter who can point out profound opportunity/light if cable and satellite operators just carry his network, TheBlaze.

Can he do it? The man who said Obama is a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred of white people”? Who says immigration rights supporters just want “to have lawbreakers come here”? Who called Gloria Steinem a “self-centered self-righteous socialist out of control dangerous man-hating bitch”.

Oh, probably not. The same day he spoke regretfully of his divisiveness he called Michelle Obama a “monster,” “Lady Macbeth,” and “a frightening woman.”

I wish he had really apologized. I wish he had apologized to the country. I wish he had apologized to the world and everyone in it, because the Glenn Beck position that I find the most lethally divisive is his promotion of the “discredited global warming scam” meme, and his stance against climate agreements. Climate change is the disaster he should be focusing on, not disunity in the Republican Party.

 

The ever-delightful Lindy West posted a roundup on Jezebel today of over-the-top peevish responses to the re-election of Barack Obama.

One was a letter to Queen Elizabeth, posted on the web site of Free Republic by one Edwin R. Williams:

Your Majesty,

We, the people of the former American colonies, would like to offer our most sincere apology over that little misunderstanding we had 236 years ago. Had we known that we were going to be subjects anyway, we could have saved a lot of trouble and hard feelings.

We were under the mistaken belief that we would be free, sovereign citizens; we believed that our hard work would yield its own rewards without someone coming along and taking what we built in the name of “Fairness”. We thought our laws and Constitution would protect us from a foreign born dictator, and our freedom to worship would prevent us from becoming a corrupt, morally bankrupt society (silly us).

Little did we know that our own free press would intentionally sabotage, deceive and withhold the truth from us in order to reelect a Socialist that still holds distain for our nation and contempt for its founding principles. Nor did we believe that there would be so many citizens dependent on government handouts that they would blindly elect an unqualified charlatan, let alone reelect him.

Anyway, Your Grace, we are truly sorry and humbly sincerely beg your forgiveness. If you can find it in your heart to forgive us and take us back, we promise never to trade British oppression for Socialist tyranny again.

Your most humble servants,

The American People

West’s reaction:

Yes. Enjoy your socialized medicine, human genius.

Our reaction:

Let us take the apology seriously for a moment. Williams does not actually have the authority or right to apologize for the American people. Even if a majority of Americans had not voted for Barack Obama, Williams was not deputized to speak for anyone except himself.  (He cannot even speak for Free Republic, given its terms of service: “Opinions expressed on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Free Republic or its operators.”) We can only apologize for ourselves and for those we represent, not those whom we presume to represent. (That’s why governments can apologize for actions of previous governments…though they don’t always apologize well.) One might add that Mr Williams owes it to himself as well as to the Queen to be factually correct. (Obama is a “foreign born dictator”? Hawaii does seem like another land from over here in snowy NYC, but I am pretty sure it is a state.) He should also explain in what way the press intentionally sabotaged the election — again, a good apology makes clear exactly what one is apologizing for.

Williams does demonstrate lovely manners by putting the period outside the quotation marks. (“Fairness”.) This is the way they do things across the pond, though in America this is what we call “a mistake.” Williams no doubt punctuated his sentence this way consciously, to demonstrate to the Queen the depth of his desire to be British. The neologism “distain” is obviously a combination of “stain” and “dismay,” similar to my own daughter’s coinage of “disastrophe” (she was three at the time).

As we’ve discussed many times on this site, it’s not enough to say you’re sorry. You have to make amends. Mr. Williams should find a way to do that, perhaps by paying the Queen all the back taxes Americans would have owed since 1776. And maybe by purchasing all the PG Tips from every stockist (that’s BRITISH LANGUAGE) in this marijuana-toking, gay-marriage-loving, Kenyan-electing socialist hellhole. And possibly even by buying a handsome monument for Monty, the corgi who appeared in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics with the Queen and Daniel Craig and who recently shuffled off this mortal doggy coil. Feel free to suggest other ways Mr Williams could make his apology meaningful, since he cannot make it personal, in the comments.

 

Good news! I’ve just read Mitt Romney’s 2010 book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. That means you don’t have to.

The title is nonsense. Here’s the fantasy scenario that’s supposed to explain it. First, Romney declares that the USA is better than everyone else in the world. Second, Romney refuses to apologize for believing it. (Here I envision Romney striking a pose.)

Right, that happens all the time. Who asked Romney to apologize? Well, once a Canadian sort of did.

“It is not uncommon to hear an American claim that the United States is the greatest nation on earth and the hope of the world. …when a Canadian colleague chided me for making the statement, I said that I was sorry he had been offended. But I did not say I was sorry for having said it—because I believe it.” (Page 293.)

I doubt the Canadian colleague was won over. Also, “My European friends have confessed that they find this sentiment both naïve and offensive.” Great. Sounds like a recipe for foreign affairs disasters.

Romney believes in “American exceptionalism,” which he says means “America has a special place and role in the world.” He complains on page 29 that when President Obama was asked, he said, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Tactful. What’s wrong with that? Romney fumes: “Which is another way of saying he doesn’t believe it at all.” Not really – Obama continued “I am enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world.” Plus more bragging about freedom of speech, equality, the founding documents, etc. Sounds like exceptionalism.

Romney does say America is not perfect. But “our past faults and errors have long been acknowledged and do not deserve the repetition that suggests either that we have been reluctant to remedy them or that we are inclined to repeat them.” (Maybe we haven’t always been perfect, but now we are.)

This is meant to contrast with the far-right claim that Obama made an “apology tour.” Romney makes this claim early, on page 25. He calls it “President Obama’s American Apology Tour.” Not “what I like to call ‘President Obama’s American Apology Tour’” or “what my new Tea Party friends decided to call ‘President Obama’s American Apology Tour.’” From the book you might think it was a real thing. But it didn’t happen.

While Romney may like to go through Obama’s speeches, pick phrases out of context, gripe about the tone, and argue that it’s too apologetic, he must know that others don’t agree. Yet he asserts that there was an “American Apology Tour” as a fact. So how can we believe anything in his book if we don’t check it? This is, after all, a book with a long discussion of domestic oil drilling in which the word and the concept of “fracking” are never mentioned.

No Apology has a bad case of a common problem with politicians’ books, written with aides, analysts, and consultants: whose words are you reading in any given point? To judge from the acknowledgements, Romney had a lot of help writing this book.

Some of it seems symbolic of his ongoing process of joining the far right. For example, Romney doesn’t talk a lot about the Democrats, preferring to focus outrage more narrowly on Obama. But there are references to Democrats, and to the Democratic Party, Democratic voters, a Democratic health-care reform program, and of course, Democratic mistakes. Then suddenly at the end of a chapter (page 167) we find “Democrat” being used as an adjective – “not a Democrat problem”. A few pages later, back to “Democratic.” Now, for some odd reason, using “Democrat” instead of “Democratic” as an adjective is favored sneer of today’s right wing. (Why misusing grammar should be a point of pride is unclear.)

So I suspect we’re reading someone else’s work there, someone else’s paragraphs tacked on.

Romney has a long impassioned passage about the high rate of out-of-wedlock births, and the harm this causes in many children’s lives. It seems heartfelt, and I am inclined to think that he really cares about this – but suddenly, at the end of the passage, it says “given the enormous human and national implications of nearly half our children being raised without the benefit of two parents, it is long past time to tell the truth: a marriage between one man and one woman is one of the best things a parent can do for a child.” (Italics in original.)

What? We were talking about children being born out of wedlock and suddenly he’s shouting about same-sex marriage? I bet he had help with that jump.

There’s lots of stuff in the book that we can’t tell who wrote. I do believe it was Romney writing about his idea for a skinny tandem car (one person in front, one in back, like a motorcycle) and the skinny highway lanes they could use. And I not only believe he wrote the line about the surge in productivity that awaits the manufacturer “who simplifies television remotes!” but I heartily support it.

He probably wrote the silly passage about national anthems because it’s too odd to be in there if it weren’t His Own Work. He says that he’s confirmed, by observing Olympic athletes, that Americans are the only people who put their hands over their hearts during their national anthem.

Okay. Could be. He then says, “I believe that we instinctively place our hands over our hearts in memory of those who shed their blood for America.” Oh brother. “Instinctively”? As in innate, inborn? No, Mitt, no. “Traditionally” is the word he should use, but who knows, maybe he really means “instinctively.” Because of course the soldiers of other nations don’t shed their blood for their countries, just green slime.

Maybe other national anthems don’t reference blood, battle and sacrifice. Maybe the Marseillaise is a love song, and “May a tainted blood drench our furrows” refers to oh, let’s see, autumn leaves. Because we are so special.

This brings us back to apology. Perhaps this stupid stuff about never apologizing isn’t intrinsic to Romney’s world view. Someone else apparently came up with the whole phony grandstanding idea. In the acknowledgements, Romney thanks Kelli Harrison, “who has worked with me and with my PAC since its inception,” for suggesting the title after he had spent at least six months trying.

That sums No Apologies up neatly – Romney voicing someone else’s dumb ideas. For which I wish he’d apologize.

 

Oh, KitchenAid, what were you thinking? In the first 2012 Obama-Romney debate, the president mentioned his late grandmother, who could live independently because of Social Security and Medicare. A tweet appeared from @KitchenAidUSA, to #nbcpolitics, reading “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! She died 3 days b4 he became president.”

Witless, tasteless, and horribly unwise from a corporate standpoint. The tweet was quickly deleted, and KitchenAid’s senior director of branding, Cynthia Soledad, began twittering frantically.

“Deepest apologies for an irresponsible tweet that is in no way a representation of the brand’s opinion” she posted to #nbcpolitics.”

Next tweet: “I would like to personally apologize to President @BarackObama, his family and everyone on Twitter for the offensive tweet sent earlier.”
Gasp: “It was carelessly sent in error by a member of our Twitter team who, needless to say, won’t be tweeting for us anymore.”

Deep breath: “That said, I take full responsibility for my team. Thank you for hearing me out.”

A later, longer statement in another forum said that the team member in question accidentally posted from the KitchenAid account, thinking they were posting from their personal account. (That could happen to anyone. Anyone witless and tasteless, I mean.)

Some people want that person fired. Some say they won’t be buying KitchenAid again. Others say KitchenAid handled it okay.

One problem is that while Soledad apologized, and presumably things aren’t going to go well for the employee in question (even if they aren’t fired for, you know, expressing their political views), that person didn’t themselves make any apology that we know of.

Which leads to the bigger problem. Soledad says the tweet “is in no way a representation of the brand’s opinion.” Brands don’t have opinions, and corporations aren’t people. What was KitchenAid thinking? Nothing – brands don’t think.

This is the trouble with spokespeople. Maybe they’re told by a vice-president, “KitchenAid policy is against joking about dead grandmothers.” Next week another vice-president appears and says, “KitchenAid is an edgy brand that holds no grandma sacred and we’re launching a series of hilarious ads about zombie grannies – get the word out!” And just as they’re getting the word out, the CEO sees one of the ads and goes ballistic and KitchenAid gets a whole new policy and probably a whole new spokesperson.

It’s not as if the buck stops there. CEOs come and go, or get new consultants, or even come to appreciate grandparents more with passing time.

So brands don’t really have opinions. (Also peanuts don’t wear top hats, geckos can’t talk, and there are a lot of people in the world more interesting than that guy.) When companies decide it would be good to use social media to publicize their products, that’s just making stuff up. When they hire people to inject personality into their corporate image, they risk getting actual personalities. Which are occasionally delightful, often boring, and occasionally witless and tasteless. But which are not the company.