"I'm sorry, so sorry
That I was such a fool
I didn't know
Love could be so cruel
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes."
"I'm Sorry." Brenda Lee's breakout hit, age 15, 1960
An expert on apologies tells Hunter Biden the next steps for getting on with his life: Do the "full-Swaggart."
Ashland resident Edwin Battistella wrote the book on apologies. In Thursday's post I had urged Hunter Biden to apologize, to go to prison, and to become a reformer condemning nepotism and influence-peddling in public life. Become known for having changed, not for being a privileged person getting away with bad behavior. Do it for your father, do it for the country, do it for yourself, I urged.Battistella suggests how to do the apology part of all that. He is the expert.
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| Oxford University Press |
Battistella is a Professor Emeritus in Linguistics at Southern Oregon University. Edwin Battistella is the author of Sorry about that: the Language of Public Apology and Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels: Insulting the President, from Washington to Trump. He is the go-to authority when the national news media needs someone to comment on an error or humiliation requiring a public apology.
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| Battistella |
Guest Post by Edwin Battistella
Like Peter, I am so very tired of Hunter Biden. He’s the gift that keep on giving to the far-right. As Frank Bruni put it in the New York Times “The intensity of many House Republicans’ fixation on Hunter Biden is deranged and journalists would be wrong to chronicle every breathless inch of their descent down that rabbit hole.”
He’s a sideshow, but one that allows criticism of Trump – and his family – to be answered with “But what about Hunter.” (see, Clinton, Hilary, “But her emails”).
And Hunter makes a bad image, kind of like Kevin Nealon playing a mid-level Mafioso in a dark suit and hang-dog expression. If there was a Biden crime family (there’s not), Hunter would be in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens.
And Peter is right. Hunter should do some jail time and he should apologize. His lawyers probably won’t let him do either thing. But if he does apologize he should do it right: he should do the "full-Swaggart."
That term the refers to old-time televangelist Jimmy Swaggart’s apology when he was photographed with a prostitute at a New Orleans motel. From his pulpit Swaggart asked forgiveness from his wife, from his family, from his church and congregation, from his fellow evangelists and his audience, and from God too.
Hunter doesn’t have a TV pulpit, but after he takes his punishment he should spell out all the people that his actions have harmed. He should do it in writing, as an open letter perhaps, giving specifics about the harm his actions and his weaknesses have done. He should apologize to his family, including his barely acknowledged daughter Navy, for his personal behavior, to his father for being a liability through his personal choices and business decisions, and to the government and the American people for allowing himself to become a distraction from the business of the administration. And he should talk about his choices for the future, making a commitment to be a better person.
He should put the whole thing in writing and then he should shut up and serve some time. With luck he’ll come out a better and more sympathetic person. And perhaps he can serve as a role model for some others who may be facing charges.
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19 comments:
Even if Hunter Biden were to apologize wholeheartedly and suddenly become an upstanding example of moral rectitude, that wouldn’t stop Republicans from using him as a distraction from their cult leader’s crimes and corruption. And what about his laptop? Crackpots are convinced it’s the key to bringing down the “Biden crime family,” but it’s being covered up by those pesky urban liberal elites and their mainstream media. Alex Jones can tell you all about it on his InfoWars website but be careful. You might get a virus that turns you into a conspiracy theorist.
First of all, he is keeping quiet, as I'm sure he is being advised. A public wailing and renting of garments would only serve as more fodder for the Republicans. They would simply accuse him of insincerity, and they'd probably be right.
Regardless of anything he does or reality, Republicans will keep beating this horse as long as possible and beyond. They are still bleating about Bengazi and emails. Why would this be any different?
Hunter Biden is not an elected or appointed official. He is not a government employee. What is wrong with You? Let's talk about Your mental and character defects. You need to undergo an in-depth psychiatric evaluation and publish the report on Your blog. No doubt you will rate high in covert narcissism.
Hunter is a recovering drug addict who was very seriously injured when he was a baby and who lost his mother, sister and brother. Since he was a baby, he has experienced a lot of major trauma.
Something is seriously wrong with the people who constantly bully him. The bullies 1) have political agendas, 2) are TOOLS, 3) are projecting, 4) are sick and sadistic, 5) are idle gossips with Nothing Better to Do, 6) are ignorant about mental illness and addiction or 7) some combination of the above.
Stop being a tool, take the time to educate yourself about the science of addiction and, for God's sake, Get A Life. The owner of this blog is an ignorant tool. What an embarrassment.
Something went wrong at Harvard the year that you people were admitted. Or maybe being a mean, nasty bully is typical at that school. I suppose attending that school can make people feel superior and entitled to judge everyone else. What a disgrace.
Everything Mr. Battistella describes is well documented or explained in the AA Big Book, and until Hunter takes this step, as painful as it may be, he will never achieve real sobriety. He may not be using drugs, including alcohol, but he will not be complete as a person. And imho, it would hurt his father to soak up some Al-Anon lessons at the same time. He may not be actively interfering, but he's been an enabler all along the path young Bidrn has taken.
One of the correctives for an inmate assault cycle is true remorse by being all out honest about his or her behaviors. One must guard about “false remorse “ in which the apologies are made, but the person reverts back into the familiar assault cycle. The false remorse allows the person to let go of any guilt or shame. In the domestic violence inmates it’s part of the wine and roses phase. To really make the change, which is difficult because the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, all out honesty and true remorse is needed. AA has the step of making amends to people harmed if possible. Seems like the post is along these lines. It’s hard to change your life patterns of destruction because there has been a lot of repetition. ‘The brain cells that are wired together, fire together.”
Do you have the guts to publish negative comments? How do YOU like it?
Hubris. Helps if you turn on the water works. JS was filmed going to his tryst by a rival evangelist that Jimmy had brought down by an accusation of (wait for it) adultery. Three years later Jimmy was discovered during a traffic stop to have a call girl in his car. Ooops. No apology that time.
From the apology: “I know that so many would ask why, why? I have asked myself that 10,000 times through 10,000 tears. Maybe Jimmy Swaggart has tried to live his entire life as though he were not human. And I have thought that with the Lord, knowing He is omnipotent and omniscient, that there was nothing I could not do — and I emphasize with His help and guidance. And I think this is the reason (in my limited knowledge) that I did not find the victory I sought because I did not seek the help of my brothers and my sisters in the Lord ...”
Oh the humanity. I am weak because I am weak... Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
I can understand why your children did not want to follow in your footsteps. You are a mean-spirited, ignorant, alcoholic bully.
You folks want to make Hunter Biden the "fall guy", when Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter's influence peddling scheme, and he profited from it. Joe Biden received money for selling-out America. It's little wonder that Joe Biden didn't care about the Chinese flying a balloon over American military bases, and Joe abandoned Afghanistan so that the Chinese could take possession of our military base there. Joe owns multiple mansions, and he didn't get the money to buy them from his government paychecks. It's time for Joe Biden to be impeached and imprisoned for bribery and treason. You don't need to be a Harvard graduate to understand that.
I publish most negative comments. Ones that are anonymous have a higher threshold of reasonableness. I get about one obscene comment a day from a local Republican Trump-supporter, making references to sex crimes he has fantasies about. I delete those. Plagiarized comments from the NY Post, Breitbart, The Daily Wire, etc. are easily spotted and I delete those. Negative comments that may be from other people, but which mimic those styles, may get discarded in that mix. I don't publish threats against me or defamations of others.(I send those to police who keep a growing file on people they track.)
I get some negative comments that accuse me of things and I consider those. I get ones that accuse me of being a drunk, a bad husband, bad father, bad citizen, a murderer, a yo-you dieter, and an elitist snob and I publish those, sometimes, depending on my mood.
I am publishing some today because the anger of the Unknown author displays the triggering effect on some readers when I share criticism of any Biden.. I am thrilled to know Biden has real supporters who are as motivated as the Trump people who put up signs saying "Fuck Joe Biden."I wish I saw MORE enthusiastic defenders of Biden. My wife and I have maxed out in our contributions to Biden and I certainly hope that Mr/Ms Unknown sidles up to me at a Biden fundraiser and tells me that he/she, too, has maxed out, along, of course, with their defense of Biden in the comment section of this blog. Possibly he or she will thank me for my Biden support and then tell me that he or she thinks I am a hostile dry-drunk narcissistic bully jerk, both.
I would be disappointed if my pro-Biden defender and accuser of my mental heath is really just the local Republican Trump-ster angry guy, putting on a good disguise. It could be.
The best way to be reliably published is to sign your real name.
Peter is not right that "Hunter should do some jail time" and neither is Mr. Battistella. How do I know this? I know it because all the evidence has not been presented to a jury which has found him guilty. It is a fundamental tenet of American justice that one cannot be sent to jail with due process and a legal finding of guilt.
Plea bargains, including the bargained for sentence, involve many things, including the strength of the evidence and the likelihood of a jury convicting. We think we know what the evidence is, but we don't. Actually, I don't even know what the evidence is and my knowledge of the allegations could use some shoring up.
Maybe he would be found guilty by a jury and maybe he wouldn't. I followed the John Edwards case rather closely and I expected a guilty verdict. After the not guilty verdict I found I had not understood some of the nuances of the case well enough.
Frankly, I view Mr. Sage's and Mr. Battistella's statements that Mr. Biden should go to jail to be just another iteration of the Trumpist chant "Lock her up." Each one is a call to use jail time for some purpose other than a legal finding of guilt justifying a jail sentence. That's un-American. The fact that there is some evidence against Mr. Biden and there was essentially none against Ms. Clinton is of no consequence. The consequential fact is that there has been no adjudication of guilt and a proper sentencing analysis done.
The same is true for Mr. Trump right now. He is presumed innocent. There is no legal finding of guilt.
The American justice system is a bedrock of democracy. Deciding that someone should go to jail in a political rally or in a blog post is just wrong.
Peter Sage....the person(s) who accused you of being a "drunk" (along with other insults) are Portland progressives, and not a Trump supporter.
They should know that being a "drug addict" is not an excuse for committing crimes, and the fact that someone likes drugs does not absolve them from the law. They are bleeding-heart liberals who refuse to accept accountability for their actions.
Most Americans, including Hunter Biden, could care less what this self-important/retirement/vanity project blog thinks about his legal problems and personal matters.
However any MAGAs who are aware of the blog could not be happier. This blog belongs in the same category as the RFK, Jr., campaign for president. It is pathetic.
Only a tiny percentage of Americans are aware of this blog. I thank my readers for taking time to read it, and the commenters for reading it and engaging with it. Of course it is a "vanity blog." I do it for the quiet pleasure of knowing people engage with it.
If I did it for money, and wrote to elicit more shares and clicks, then I would be a fanboy for liberal progressive positions. I would affirm a point of view relentlessly. I recognize that my writing that Biden's age is a risk (c.f. McConnell and Feinstein's incidents) and a potential time bomb for Democrats, and that Hunter's grifting is no better than Jared's, turns off some readers. It reduces my likelihood of going viral. And, of course, MAGA readers aren't happy with me. And maybe the world finds other websites more interesting and useful.
Anyhow, I do not expect to be universally loved and appreciated when I publish a post, nor for every blog post to get universal applause. I discuss issues at controversy. This is not a blog about puppies and toddlers and baby ducks.
Peter Sage
Peter,
I like your policy of not printing comments that resort to gratuitous personal attacks on you or other commenters, such as those from 'anonymous.' They're of no benefit. Criticism such as Phil Arnold's we can learn from.
Peter, I think you should consider not publishing those comments that are personally insulting to you and/or call you names. Criticism of your positions should be encouraged and is in line with your goal of discussing issues at controversy.
There would be a purpose served by not publishing ad hominem attacks; The rest of us who want to follow the thread about the subject raised wouldn't have to read through that nonsense. Maybe, you're publishing them just to show you aren't avoiding criticism. Regular readers know you welcome discussion.
Whatever you do about this, it is clear that many of us enjoy the discussion, whether we comment regularly or not.
Given the current level of polarization in this country, partisans will pick up and use whatever weapons they can find lying around; Hunter Biden’s business deals, for instance, or Hillary’s email server. Republicans will use anything that can be construed as “woke“ (e.g. the historical errors in the 1619 Project). Democrats will use anything that can be construed as “racist” (e.g. the statement about the benefits of skills in the Florida curriculum document).
And, to quote Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse 5, “so it goes…“
Just a little side note:
Most if not all of the Black Republicans in Congress have denounced Florida’s Black history curriculum, but I haven’t heard a single Democrat suggest Hunter Biden's problems in any way affects Joe Biden’s qualifications to be president.
I have never seen Hunter Biden on a ballot.
His father is doing a great job and has my full support!
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