Democrats Apologize.

"I'm sorry, so sorry, that I was such a fool. I didn't know love could be so cruel  Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yes.

You tell me mistakes are part of being young. But that don't right the wrong that's been done."

              Brenda Lee, "I'm Sorry," Billboard #1, 1960


Donald Trump is famous for doubling down. He doesn't apologize. He stands his ground. His voters like fortitude and defiance.

Some Democrats are going the other direction.

Ed Battistella

Most Democratic apologies are the kinds of heartfelt and fulsome apologies that apology expert Ed Battistella says constitutes a "good" apology. 

They state the error in detail. 

They take responsibility for the error. 

They acknowledge people may have been hurt by the error. 

They apologize. 

They announce their intention to reform and restore the social order they agree they breached. 

Kirsten Gillibrand says she is sorry. As a Member of Congress representing an upstate rural District she had held positions she now says were "callous." She had supported gun rights and got an A+ rating from the NRA. She had opposed amnesty for the undocumented and had used the words "illegal aliens" to describe them. She wanted to make English the official language of the US.

That was then. "Looking back, I just really regretted that I didn't look beyond my district," she said. She traveled to Brooklyn and met the family of a girl killed by a gunshot. "I just knew I was wrong, and i knew I had to do something to make sure that young beautiful girl did not die in vain."

She is sorry for all that. She is different now.

Tulsi Gabbard has a history that muddles her credentials as an accept-no-compromise successor to Bernie Sanders. Her father was an anti-gay activist in Hawaii. She joined him in statements opposing same sex marriage. She apologized. 

She put her past error into context: "I grew up in a socially conservative household where I was raised to believe that marriage should be only between a man and a woman. Many years ago I apologized for my words and more importantly for the negative impact that they had. I sincerely repeat my apology today. I'm deeply sorry for having said them."

Beto O'Rourke apologized for a review he wrote at age 19 about a musical in his college newspaper. He criticized the glitzy actresses, saying they pasted on a "parma-smile" and that their "only qualifications seemed to be their phenomenally large breasts and tight buttocks."

O'Rourke: "I am ashamed of what I wrote and I apologize. There is no excuse for making disrespectful and demeaning comments about women." 

Bernie Sanders apologized "from the bottom of my heart"  for not knowing about the salaries of some of his campaign workers, nor the $30,000 settlement paid to one female staffer because of actions by his former Iowa campaign manager. "When we talk about ending sexism and ending all forms of discrimination those beliefs cannot just be words. They must be based in day-to-day reality and the work that we do. And that was clearly not the case in the 2016 campaign. The allegations that I have heard speak to unacceptable behavior."

Joe Biden understands that he didn't handle the Anita Hill hearing in a way acceptable to today's woke and empowered women. Following the 1991 hearing Biden wrote and ushered through the Violence Against Women Act. He jumped immediately onto the anti-Weinstein bandwagon. He wants to be judged by subsequent actions but he carries the burden of the 1991 hearing. He said he attempted to act like a judge--a committee chair--not an angry partisan. (In the Kavanaugh hearing Lindsay Graham set the standard for 2018 propriety: full on, angry defense of teammate.) 

Biden's apology on Anita Hill is imperfect. "I wish I had been able to do more for Anita Hill. I owe her an apology. My one regret is that I wasn't able to tone done the attacks on her b some of my Republican friends. I mean, they really went after her. As much as I tried to intervene, I did not have the power to gavel them out of order." 

Notice he is apologizing for being helpless, not for being wrong. Inadequate.

The takeaway: compliance, not defiance. 

These Democratic candidates are hastening to accept the harshest judgements of the political left and to conform to their expectations. 

What did not happen is Gillibrand saying that a great many people in upstate New York actually like their guns, and in rural contexts maybe they have a point, and in any case they deserve representation, too. No. She said she had been wrong.

Will Rogers Follies

Gabbard did not say that a decade ago most people agreed that marriage should be between one man and one woman, but customs and expectations changed and she changed with them. No. She said she had been wrong. 

O'Rourke did not say that for Gosh sakes I was nineteen, lighten up, and that what I wrote was the simple truth.The women did, in fact have big breasts and tight bottoms, which is part of why they were hired for the role, and there is no shame in noting the obvious and intentional element of their stage costumes. No. He apologized. 

These apologies accept the premise that actions of the past should be judged by the new, tough standards of the 2018-2019 political environment, and that these judgements are valid. Compliance.

It is very opposite to Trump. Trump's brand is not to let others tell him what he should do and think and to communicate that he won't be pushed around by moral scolds. He defies the politically correct police.

As the campaign develops I predict this will become a major point of difference, both among the Democratic candidates and between the Democrat and Trump. Watch this space.

.

Tomorrow, two Democrats who are not apologizing: Elizabeth Warren for taking a DNA test, Kamala Harris for having been a prosecutor.