Voters Hearing Countless Ways of Saying ‘Sorry’.

Mark Leibovich, New York Times:

When politicians make the ruinous mistake of actually saying what they mean in public — or, at the very least, breaching the talking-point orthodoxy that is demanded of them — they crack open an unintended window into their character. Public apologies are an effort to shut this window as quickly as possible.

Politicians have been apologizing for as long as they have been getting in trouble, of course. But the recent wave has been remarkable in its frequency and sweep. A Washington Republican Senate candidate, Mike McGavick, stunned many last month when he apologized on his campaign blog for “the very worst and most embarrassing things in my life,” and then catalogued a roster that included a previously undisclosed drunken-driving citation from 13 years ago and a questionable campaign advertisement he allowed 18 years ago.

“None of these apologies are effective because no one believes them anymore,” said Chuck Todd, editor of the daily political tip-sheet, Hotline.

The notion of political apologies has become cheapened by the caveats that often accompany, and dilute, them, Mr. Todd said.

Mr. Allen offers something of an object lesson. “I do apologize if he’s offended by that” was Mr. Allen’s first attempt in L’affaire Macaca before his mea culpas spiraled into progressive handwringing and culminated in a phone call to his victim, S. R. Sidarth, a 20-year-old volunteer for his opponent, James Webb. (The Webb campaign questioned whether the remark was a racist slur because macaca can refer to a monkey.)

As a general rule, apologies lose their potency as time elapses, a principle articulated by Alben W. Barkley, Harry S. Truman’s vice president, who said, “If you have to eat crow, eat it while it’s hot.” This is especially true in a time of bloggers, live microphones and camera-toting “trackers” from rival campaigns, when any gaffe can immediately find its way onto the Internet.