Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
With the breaking news of Senator John Ensign (R-NV)’s affair with a former campaign staffer, the Polinguist thought it would be timely to begin our project with, appropriately enough, an “A” word: apology or apologia.
“I take full responsibility for my actions. I know that I have deeply hurt and disappointed my wife, my children, my family, my friends, my staff and the people of Nevada who believed in me not just as a legislator but as a person. I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions.” -Sen. Ensign
In their delightful Aristotle and an Aardvark Go To Washington, Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein observed that, contrary to it’s near cousin the eukairos (rapid response or good timing), apologia can often be a dish best served very, very cold. Which might explain why it took a year between the indiscretion and admission in Sen. Ensign’s case (the affair took place in 2007-2008, following Sen. Ensign’s 2006 re-election; he is not up for re-election again until 2012, ample time to try to put this scandal behind him).
Ironically, on the campaign trail, an apologia must often be deployed instantaneously, sometimes even in advance of the charge requiring response — a type of rhetorical inoculation. This is seemingly contrary to the original meaning of the term, which has its roots in the legal process of ancient Greece, where the “prosecution” would deliver a speech called the kategoria and the defendant rebutted with the apologia (literally, apo- for from and -logos for speech). The apology speech was initially a self-justification or defense of one’s actions, and did not emerge in the English language in its modern definition until the late 18th century. Today, to apologize is to acknowledge culpability and express regret, rather than to simply give a justifying account.
At least, that is what it is normally taken to mean. Political handbooks for aspiring candidates lumps the preemptive justification/apology in with a multitude of ways to “deal with a negative attack” (Admit it before the attack even comes, Attack the attack, Turn the attack into a positive, Deflect it with humor, Deflect it with sorrow, Stonewall by saying there is no story, Stonewall by citing higher motives, Admit the indiscretion and ask for forgiveness, Neither admit nor deny the allegation, Deny the charge and demand an apology, Blame the media and demand they reveal the unidentified source, and Ignore), according to William Bike’s Winning Political Campaigns.
This route, differentiation – separating the candidate from the accusation by counter-attacked the source or by redefining the context of the attack – is a common political tactic when a campaign is under fire. Kathryn Olson astutely points out that such a tact is often a course of last resort and ultimately typically concludes with role imbalance, where the attacked candidate turns on the media for “stepping over the line.” This form of rhetoric, of self-defense instead of self-justification, is not only risky but, should evidence emerge contrary to the candidate’s denial, it can also be self-destructive and cause irreparable damage to the campaign.
Bill Clinton's presidency became embroiled over public apology rhetoric.
Bizarrely, for such a shift to be effective, the charges against the candidate must be exceptionally egregious and damaging, to the point they strain credibility. The candidate’s goal, then, is to galvanize public opinion to their side and illustrate how the attack against them harms the polity as a whole. Such a strategy is similar to what Ware and Linkugel call the “transcendental strategy,” which endeavors to persuade the electorate to look at the broader and more abstract nature of the candidate’s character, in a frame that is beneficial to the campaign. Given the American public’s salacious desire for scandal, however, this is a path that is rarely fruitful.
Judith Trent and Robert Friedenberg recognize that the political apologia can come close to returning to its original meaning of justification: “If the incident that triggered the need for apologia cannot be explained positively…the candidate can at least justify behavior.” And there is, of course, a third and final purpose to the public apology speech: to remove the issue from public debate. This motive often pushes modern campaigns to air all of the candidate’s dirty laundry early, to put it on the table, and remove it from discussion.
Similarly, the confessional apology admits culpability and attempts to put what is probably an unwinnable issue behind them. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 speech at the Temple Adath Yeshurun
Jesse Jackson on the campaign trail in 1984.
in New Hampshire, apologizing for remarks he made that were seen as anti-Semitic, is an example. Even Bill Clinton – about whom an encyclopedia on apologia could be written – demonstrated explicit confession in his admission that he caused “pain” in his marriage.
This is the form of apologia that Sen. Ensign has employed, what Burke and others call “mortification”: admitting and accepting that you acted improperly. Larry Powell and Joseph Cowart note that “Voters are more tolerant of wrongdoing than many candidates might realize, and they are particularly tolerant when a candidate is willing to accept responsibility and acknowledge wrongdoing.”
In the course of American political history, the late 20th century has seen a disproportionate share of political apologia. The reason behind this is probably deeply connected with the rise of the modern news media: a voracious press, in need of 24 hours of news coverage, is more scrutinizing and unforgiving than their counterparts of even just forty years ago. Abetting the cause has been some major ethical breaches by American political leaders, including most strikingly the Watergate scandal. Such high profile scandals alert and overly sensitize the American people to issues of character and integrity.
Apologia cases are rampant. The evolution of Ronald Reagan’s response to the Iran-Contra crisis
Ronald Reagan's apology for Iran-Contra evolved.
is illustrative: first denial, then self-justification, then mortification and apology, and, in a final step, victimization, with his staff taking the fall for the scandal. Apologia is a bipartisan affair, of course. Laying aside the entire Clinton imbroglio, consider what Powell and Cowart aptly
Chandra Levy (l) and Gary Condit (c)
headlined “How Not to Do a Mea Culpa”: the Gary Condit incident. Rather than admit up front that he had an improper relationship with intern Chandra Levy, Condit, then a Congressman from California, ducked the press, going on the record only to counter-attack the media. Such a combative attitude failed utterly, leading Time magazine to observe, “If the Congressman was hoping to sound contrite about his relationship with missing intern Chandra Levy, he might have tried saying he was sorry.”
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