so the story has been noodled over a fair bit and it is probably time to move on. but one thing that i had to keep thinking about ever since the morning after the “you lie” incident was not so much what would the right wing media have said if an african american congress man (or woman) would have yelled “you lie” during one of the state of the union speeches by bush, but rather what is an apology worth these days? and what does an apology mean? after all, joe wilson as maureen dowd mentions in her great sunday times column boy, oh boy belonged to the group sons of confederate veterans and he also actively pushed for keeping the confederate flag on top of the south carolina capitol. and i have to agree with her conclusion
Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.
if that is the case though, then the apology was nothing but a phony apology. let me clarify this. there were two things to apologize for obviously. one, the inappropriate act of calling a sitting president a liar in congress, and second to call someone a liar even though the person is not a liar. now the first part is a formality (although if one watched fox news coverage from 4, 5, 6, 7 years back treating a president un-presidential was close to treason, at least back then), but the second part is part of how to debate among each other and in part shows your actual respect for the other. with wilson’s background and the way that he apologized hastily by phone i can only think that he barely if at all wanted to apologize for the interruption, but not the content. and if that is the case, who cares, he could have saved his time, because that kind of apology is worthless, what does it really mean? it means i acted inappropriately but honestly i don’t feel sorry about anything. in a way it is the same type of apology that kanye west provided after his stupid outburst at the mtv event.
it is unfortunate that the public apology has become just another public event that means nothing. it doesn’t make people think about what they did wrong, it is just part of the discourse and the apology in a way seems to ok the bad behavior. once someone apologized we are supposed to be ok with the initial bad behavior that caused the apology. it is even as though one can plan bad behavior and just build in an apology. because the beauty of this is that the apology will be quickly forgotten, but the initial act will live on, especially in the target constituencies — in the case of joe these are the right wing fringes that feel threatened by a president that is not only of a different race than they are, but that also proves to be superior to them, and shows them how their own little world is changing, and they don’t like change.
