Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York just proved again that if a politician doesn’t do an apology right even after two tries, then he isn’t really sorry. Alas, American public life seems to have lost whatever vestiges remained of the art and grace of sincere repentance.
Schumer has been justifiably under fire from across the political spectrum for appearing to threaten Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday. He made matters not better but worse when he subsequently issued a statement (through a spokesman) refusing to acknowledge he had erred, instead both claiming he had said something entirely different and attacking Chief Justice John Roberts and “the right wing” for supposedly “deliberate misinterpretation” of Schumer’s remarks.
Obviously, Schumer’s nasty churlishness didn’t work, so finally, he took to the Senate floor this morning to admit in person that he “should not have used the words [he] used yesterday.”
“They didn’t come out the way I intended to,” he continued, before again trying to recast his earlier statement in a different light. Later, again, “I shouldn’t have used the words I did, but in no way was I making a threat.”
Note, though, that he never used a word such as “apologize,” “sorry,” or “regret.” Worse still, he pivoted not once but twice, in that very statement, to attacking others for daring to criticize him. He said it “is a gross distortion” to imply that he meant to say what he did. Furthermore, he said, the problem was not really the content of his original remarks, but it was “Republicans who were busy manufacturing outrage over these comments.”
This not only was not contrition; it wasn’t even in the realm of decency. This was akin to a mugger saying that, of course, he didn’t intend for his victim’s face to get in the way of his fist — and that witnesses were faking objections to the resultant blood and bruises they saw.
What a lowlife.
Of course, it wasn’t just Republicans who interpreted Schumer’s remarks as plainly intended threats. Liberal legal luminaries Neal Katyal and Laurence Tribe both criticized Schumer’s comments. Tribe called them “inexcusable” and “an implicit threat.” Likewise, liberal TV commentators Chris Hayes of MSNBC (“really out of line”) and Chris Cuomo of CNN (“it’s wrong”) took Schumer to task. And that’s just a quick sampling.
Whatever Schumer claims he intended, what he actually said was obviously inappropriate. For him to attack the critics is despicable.
Schumer’s performance on the Senate floor today was anything but an attempt at an apology — much less a successful one, meaning one that contains as many as possible of the “six elements of an effective apology,” readily available in numerous online outlets.
Of course, apologies are hard, even in private. And politicians tend not to be of the personality types that admit mistakes easily. Still, Schumer now has provided a particularly egregious example of how President Trump’s “never apologize” mantra now infects the whole body politic. There was a time when, even if politicians typically hedged by saying they apologize “to anyone who was offended,” they still paid tribute to the necessity for contrition. Now, as with Schumer, even the vaguest of words of regret serve merely as pivot points for renewed attacks against adversaries.
As with so many other elements of the coarsening and cheapening of public discourse, this trend does not bode well for a stable political system.
And I’m not at all sorry if anyone is offended by my suggestion that an important element of our republic is at risk.
