When President Bush addressed the nation on Wednesday, January 10, a few news commentators hoped he would more apologetic about his failed war policies than in previous speeches. Take, for instance, Anna Quindlen, who entitled her recent Newsweek column “Contrition as Leadership.” Quindlen’s columns are stereotypically motherly, aimed unflinchingly at the nation’s soccer moms, and this one lives up to her reputation.
…[N]o one suggested that George W. Bush would utter the words polls indicate that so many Americans believe he should: “I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”
Quindlen’s key point is that Bush’s unwillingness to apologize (His exact words, in fact, were “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”) reveals how “deeply ingrained resistance to admitting mistakes is in the American male.”
And, as much as I hate to admit it (ahem!), I think Quindlen and her band of sociolinguists may be correct. Take, for instance, the statement of another venerated president, Richard Broadhead of Duke University. In a letter to the Duke Community dated January 8, 2007 (coincidence?), Broadhead stated:
In the confusion of this situation, the University's response was guided by two principles: that if true, the conduct that had been alleged was grave and should be taken very seriously, and that our students had to be presumed innocent until proven guilty through the legal process.
You don’t have to live in Durham to know that this statement stretches the truth. The atmosphere that enveloped Duke and Durham in late March and April 2006 was one of indignation. Granted, much of the fire was fanned by District Attorney Mike Nifong, who seemed ready to pronounce the players guilty even before DNA tests were carried out (and, apparently, even after they came back negative). But the way the university handled the situation – suspending the players, canceling the lacrosse season, asking for the resignation of a top-tier lacrosse coach, and banding together to condemn the violence and racism that at that time was mere speculation – seems to indicate an error in judgment on the part of the university and its president. On April 5, 2006 Broadhead wrote:
We can’t be surprised at the outpouring of outrage. Rape is the substitution of raw power for love, brutality for tenderness, and dehumanization for intimacy. It is also the crudest assertion of inequality, a way to show that the strong are superior to the weak and can rightfully use them as the objects of their pleasure. When reports of racial abuse are added to the mix, the evil is compounded, reviving memories of the systematic racial oppression we had hoped to have left behind us.
If the allegations are verified, what happened would be a deep violation of fundamental ethical principles and among the most serious crimes known to the legal system…
While he does qualify his condemnation by alluding to the unverified nature of the allegations, Broadhead shrouds his doubts in rhetoric of outrage at the abuse of the weak by the powerful.
I don’t mean to sound too scathing about Broadhead’s reaction to the scandal last spring. In fact, I felt just about as convinced of the lacrosse players’ guilt as I’m sure he did. What I’m trying to point out is simply that hindsight gives us the opportunity to re-evaluate our actions, and I think our leaders should recognize when they have made a wrong decision. As Deborah Tannen, a sociolinguist at Georgetown, put it to Quindlen, “They fear it suggests weakness to acknowledge error when in fact it suggests strength, self-confidence, and the ability to learn and grow.”
In Bush’s case, however, there may be a simpler explanation at hand: it only makes sense to “acknowledge error” when you think you’ve actually made one. This may explain why Bush’s speeches continue to leave us high and dry.
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