Free Republic

WASHINGTON — “I wish that we had come back with better news from Copenhagen,” President Barack Obama said a few weeks ago after an unsuccessful trip across the ocean to try to snag the 2016 Summer Olympics for Chicago. It wasn’t the kind of happy spin that politicians typically come up with after a failure. Call it a breath of fresh air or a turnoff. Either way, the man in the Oval Office is making a habit of confessing, apologizing, revealing and regretting. Don’t mistake it: Team Obama doesn’t miss many chances to try to put its actions in a...

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs passed a resolution by voice vote last week apologizing "on behalf of American people" to all Indian tribes for the mistreatment and violence by American citizens. Senate Joint Resolution 14, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), states that its purpose is “to acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian Tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.” In Section 1A, No. 4 of the resolution states that the apology is on behalf of U.S. citizens for harm they...

President Barack Obama does not expect his "beer summit" will be a mediation session for the black professor and the white policeman who arrested him to work out their differences, the White House said Thursday. Obama invited Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley to join him for a beer in hopes of quieting the furor over the president's comment that in taking Gates into custody police had "acted stupidly." Gibbs told reporters that none of the three planned to say anything about their meeting when reporters are allowed to join them Thursday evening...

A common theme that runs through President Obama's statements is the idea the United States must atone for its past policies, whether it is America's application of the war against Islamist terrorism or its overall foreign policy. At the core of this message is the concept that the U.S. is a flawed nation that must seek redemption by apologizing for its past "sins." On several occasions, President Obama has sought to apologize for the actions of his own country when addressing a foreign audience--including seven of the 10 apologies listed below. The President has already apologized for his country to...

How the President Has Humiliated a Superpower A common theme that runs through President Obama's statements is the idea the United States must atone for its past policies, whether it is America's application of the war against Islamist terrorism or its overall foreign policy. At the core of this message is the concept that the U.S. is a flawed nation that must seek redemption by apologizing for its past "sins."

There is an ancient saying best summarized as: "Those who are kind to the cruel in the end will be cruel to the kind." We saw this warning vividly and sorrowfully cast aside at the Summit of All Americas as President Obama smiled and warmly embraced the thug, Hugo Chavez, who sits astride Venezuela while its frail democracy dies by a "thousand cuts" under his growing dictatorship. Obama greeted Hugo Chavez 24 hours after the Venezuelan ruler said, "The United States Empire is on its way down and will be finished in the near future, inshallah!" The Arabic word Chavez...

THE calendar says Presi dent Obama took office in 2009, although that's only a technicality. In his own mind, Obama ascended in Year Zero, a time of ritualistic cleansing in preparation for the relaunching of an America free from its past sins. Has a US president ever appeared less vested in his nation's history than Obama? He shrugged off a rancid attack on America by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega at the Summit of the Americas, including a rant on the Bay of Pigs operation in 1961, by saying he was only 3 months old at the time. Nothing to do...

Our President is working a list of nations he feels we’ve offended and he’s apologizing. Ultimately, that behavior will bite him back. Significant apologies drag sea anchors called consequences. You accidently bump into someone in an elevator and say “I’m sorry.” No consequences, unless they’re psycho. You accidently run over your neighbor’s cat and say “I’m sorry.” There may or may not be consequences, depending on your relationship with your neighbor. You drive drunk and cause an accident injuring others. “I’m sorry” doesn’t ease the consequences. As President Obama apologizes across the globe, eventually some recipients of his apologies will...

WASHINGTON (Routers) With his historic speech today, most analysts agreed that the Obama administration made huge inroads in rebuilding America’s relations with the rest of the solar system, reversing anti-terrestrial hostility that had understandably built up in the wake of years of Bush administration arrogance and interplanetary war mongering. In an address before the International Astronomical Union, the president made a moving plea for understanding to all the asteroids that may find our planet in their path. “This asteroid problem is one that we inherited from the last administration, which not only did nothing about it, but exacerbated it with...

While pundits in the United States debate whether or not President Obama inclined his body toward Saudi King Abdullah at last week’s Group of 20 meeting in London, attention in Europe is more focused on the president’s verbal bowing during the summit. During the final “decisive� session of the G-20 meeting, President Obama uttered three words that, at least according to this account by the respected German news magazine Der Spiegel, amounted to a US confession for causing the financial crisis and and “may go down in world history as one of the greatest statements ever made.� What, pray tell,...

Watching Barack Obama this past week was painful. The new president went out of his way to apologize for America's flaws. His groveling won rave reviews from some foreigners, the American mainstream media, and others who hold the United States in contempt. A key component to Obama's approach was apologetically groveling. Expressing regrets about America is something that apparently comes easily to Obama. Certainly he's had enough experience in apologizing for his own fumbles. He said he was sorry for comparing his bowling prowess to the Special Olympics. He had to call Nancy Reagan and apologize for saying she held...

President Obama, as befits a true leftist, has been apologizing vociferously to the world for not only all of the horrible things George W. Bush did, but apparently also for the rest of us lowly Americans for being "arrogant" and "dismissive" toward Europe. I'll bet Eurolitists are practically wetting their pants at the admission of an American president that even though George W. Bush is out of office, the Ugly American is alive and well. Additionally, he made sure America received its share of the blame of the world economic crisis. By doing so, I suppose he's just trying to...

Sorry is not the hardest word for the Obama administration. Since Obama won the presidential election, the former senator from Illinois and top-ranking officials of his administration, including Vice President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have delivered a handful of apologies. At his first press conference as president-elect, for example, Obama made a remark about Nancy Reagan that he quickly regretted. Asked if he had spoken with any ex-presidents since the election, Obama said he had contacted all former presidents “that are living.” “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any...

LOS ANGELES – Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano says he won't apologize to the people he spied on but does take responsibility for the tactics that brought him a 15-year prison sentence.

America was founded in order to destroy Islam? Statements like that give the anti-jihad movement a wingnut patina that, of course, ABC is happy to perpetuate in this anti-McCain hit piece, which breezes by the fact that his campaign has strongly disavowed these statements. But when McCain's campaign strongly disavows these statements, is he disavowing them all -- including the manifestly true statement that some Muslims quite obviously intend to conquer and Islamize the world? Is McCain completely unaware of the 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document, An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," in...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A soldier used the Quran -- Islam's holy book -- for target practice, forcing the chief U.S. commander in Baghdad to issue a formal apology on Saturday. Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond apologizes after a soldier admitted using the Quran for target practice. Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, apologized to leaders in Radhwaniya, in the western outskirts of Baghdad, for the staff sergeant who was a sniper section leader assigned to the headquarters of the 64th Armored Regiment. He also read a letter of apology by the shooter. It was the first...

Don't presidential candidates get tired of apologizing for remarks they didn't make? It's in the nature of campaigns to careen from the totally unexpected to the utterly unthinkable, but recent events in the presidential contest probably ought to be filed under the heading: "With friends like these." By Friday, all three candidates had been forced to apologize for the offensive views of a prominent supporter. John McCain was first, when one of the evangelical ministers whose approval he has so assiduously courted turns out to have some inconvenient views. John Hagee, a prominent Texas televangelist, also happens to teach that...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Wednesday the Senate should apologize for slavery and segregation, calling them “dark chapters in our history.” McCain said he would support a planned resolution by fellow Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, who is also seeking the presidency, to apologize for racist laws, some of which ended more than a century ago. “They were federal policies,” Brownback told the Boston Globe on Monday. “They were wrong. The only way for us to move forward . . . is at the end of the day acknowledging those, taking ownership for it, and asking for forgiveness.” McCain agreed...

Virginia's General Assembly has adopted a resolution, expressing "profound regret" for the role the US state played in slavery. The resolution was passed by a 96-0 vote in the House and also unanimously backed in the 40-member Senate. Although non-binding, the resolution sent an important symbolic message, its sponsors said. Lawmakers also expressed regret for "the exploitation of Native Americans" in Virginia. Saturday's resolution was passed as the state was preparing to mark the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, where the first Africans arrived in 1619. It said that government-sanctioned slavery "ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of...

...So after putting in a request that I thought Jackson's staff wouldn't take seriously, I was startled when my phone rang two hours later and the reverend was on the other end. I would be absolved, I thought, in two or three minutes. I was very wrong. When I explained my request, it became clear that this hypothetical offensive thing I might do someday was instead happening right now. "Why should you be offensive?" Jackson asked, annoyed. "I don't know why you would do that." Luckily, as I was stammering a response, Jackson smoothly segued into reciting his own agenda....

The republic would seem to be in good health, if not sound mind, when hurt feelings and public embarrassment are the picadors of public passion. The past few weeks have provided a surfeit of sensitivity challenges: -- A group of ``lactivists'' staged a nurse-in to protest an airline's insensitivity to a breast-feeding mom. - Two African-American men hired a lawyer to sweeten an apology they're demanding from a racist, epithet-hurling comedian.

Top 40 radio station KDWB-FM in the Twin Cities has apologized for an on-air comedy skit called "Muslim Jeopardy." The skit included an announcer using a fake South Asia accent introducing contest categories such as "infamous infidels" and "potent portables," according to the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, which said it had received complaints about the skit.

Hollywood Apologies This week Mel Gibson had an unfortunate relapse in his fight with alcohol, and because of some imprudent comments made while in that state, Hollywood is demanding an apology. Appropriately so; but when Mel actually and fully apologized, Hollywood elites and the Anti-Defamation League seem to have been singularly unsatisfied with his mea culpa and are psychoanalyzing his deeper motives for what he said. Be that as it may, Mel did what good people are supposed to do when they fall: he took immediate responsibility for his actions, apologized completely, promised to amend his ways and is making...

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WORLD An Israeli's reply to the world (UN) can be summed up in two words and they aren't Happy Birthday. Dear World, I understand that you are upset by us, here in Israel. Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry. (Outraged?) Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset by us. Today, it is the "brutal repression of the Palestinians"; yesterday it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War and the Sinai campaign. It appears that Jews who triumph...

AMERICANS will certainly have 9/11 in mind when they vote today. But they should keep another date in mind, too — one almost exactly a quarter-century ago: Nov. 4, 1979. A clear path runs to 9/11 from the day of the raid on the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the seizure of American hostages. The 1979 embassy attack came at a time when the administration of President Jimmy Carter was trying to prop up the new Khomeinist regime in Tehran. Carter had decided to support Khomeini in the context of the so-called "Green Belt" strategy developed by National Security...

I just wanted to publicly thank you Jim for restoring my account today. I also made this post to apologize to the following FReepers: Jim Robinson, John Robinson, BobJ, Doug from Upland, Howlin, nopardons, onyx, Golden Eagle, and any others I might have missed that are still here for the assorted personal attacks and badmouthings I made about them while associated with TLBSHOW and sites like ClownPosse/Anti Kooking/Anti Freeping. However DON'T expect me to be making more personal attacks against such former associates. I have returned here as a part of a Gun Rights Crusade I'm currently engaged in and...

Recently, despite the terrorist bombings in London and Egypt, much has been printed in columns or spoken on news shows against the Patriot Act in the United States and against the shooting of a potential terrorist in London. A young Brazilian man ran from the police who had tried to question him because he was wearing a heavy, bulky coat even though everyone one else was in shirtsleeves in the warm weather. He ran into, of all places, a subway entrance, jumping over a turnstile and into a subway train identical to the one that had killed over fifty people...

It seems President Fox of Mexico does not like people pointing out why he is a failure. To hide his failure, he decides to not only insult Americans, but Mexicans as well. Just look at one of Fox's recent comments: "There is no doubt that Mexicans...are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States." He said this in a speech broadcast in part on local radio and reported on newspaper web sites (Reuters, Fri. May 13). LibertyPost.org reports the comment this way: "There's no doubt that the Mexican men and women...are doing the work...

We Americans need to get our priorities straight. We are at war with Islam. I want President Bush, Secretary Rice, the media, and the bleeding-heart liberals to stop apologizing to Islam and I want it to stop right now. Islamists are slaughtering people all over the world. Islam has threatened to make our streets “run red with American blood.” A Saudi Islamic cleric gave bin Laden permission to detonate a nuke in a major American city. Enough already! What has set off the latest round of breast-beating and begging for Islamic forgiveness? Allegedly, the Quran was urinated on, or placed...

As a rule, when I write a piece about all the mistakes my newspaper, the L.A. Times, makes, I have to wait a week or even two to compile a selection large enough to make it worth our while. It’s not that they don’t come up with a ready supply on a daily basis. Heck, UPS doesn’t deliver the goods with such regularity. But some of the goofs are simply too boring to mention, as when they get the days and times of certain events wrong or when they simply misspell someone’s name. Sometimes, too, the corrections run even longer...

CENTER MORICHES, N.Y. (AP) - A hospital that accidentally placed the amputated leg of a deceased patient in a plastic bag with the personal belongings of another patient apologized Tuesday, and a spokeswoman said officials were trying to determine how the error may have occurred. "We regret that the situation has happened . . . and we have expressed our feelings to the family," said Nancy Uzo, a spokeswoman for Central Suffolk Hospital in Riverhead on eastern Long Island. She added that the hospital was investigating how the mistake occurred and would take any corrective action to prevent a repeat....

I CAN SEE from the Daily News' Friday editorial ("A Penn professor gets a lesson from Bush") that you are puzzled, dismayed and disappointed by my statements of last Monday concerning the Esquire magazine article. You may not like or accept my reasons, but I will give them. Sixteen months ago, I left the White House after serving the half-year I publicly said I would when I took the job. I stayed just long enough to complete the only task at which I had any special skill, namely "Unlevel Playing Field," a study exploring how government discriminates against grassroots religious...

RATHER STAYS HOME; EXECUTIVES SPLIT; MOONVES LOOKS TOWARDS FUTURE *Exclusive** CBSNEWS veteran Don Hewitt called Dan Rather's disappearance from Monday's Evening News "really stupid" during a damage control meeting on Monday, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT. One top source inside the CBS Broadcast Center claimed Rather was told to stay off the air on Monday, as a form of punishment! Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer was called in to anchor the damaged ship. CBS staffers were shocked Monday when CBS president Les Moonves suddenly tied Rather's upcoming resignation to the phony document flap, a departure from CBS's official storyline. Moonves...

Such a stance ignores a central fact about the War on Terror that simply cannot be repeated too many times: the terrorists are not fighting to preserve a way of life--they are fighting to impose a way of life on everyone else. Ask the women in Afghanistan who voted for the first time in the history of that country--who risked life and limb to do so and would not be intimidated by the remnants of the Taliban who warned them with bombs not to go near the polling places--if they agree that the terrorists are simply preserving a sacred way...

Letter Of Apology Author unknown - sentiment shared. For good and ill, the Iraqi prisoner abuse mess will remain an issue. On the one hand, right thinking Americans will abhor the stupidity of the actions while on the other hand, political glee will take control and fashion this minor event into some modern day My Lai massacre. I heard some Arabs are asking for an apology. I humbly offer mine here: I am sorry that the last seven times we Americans took up arms and sacrificed the blood of our youth, it was in the defense of Muslims (Bosnia, Kosovo,...

Stanford Athletic Director Ted Leland publicly apologized and the Stanford Band agreed to impose sanctions on itself after it performed a halftime show that mocked Mormonism at a home football game against Brigham Young University on Sept. 11. Spokespeople for both the Athletic Department and the Stanford Band refused to say what the sanctions were, though The Daily has learned that they include — and may be limited to — a formal apology and a one-game suspension for Band announcer Mark Ruben, a recent Stanford graduate. The halftime show, whose script was approved by the Athletic Department, featured several jabs...

why on earth would Kerry tell the Council on Foreign Relations in December that, if elected, he would abandon the president's war on terror, begin a dialogue with terrorist regimes and apologize for the "years of mistakes by the Bush administration"? In an article in the March issue of Insight magazine, author Kenneth R. Timmerman described the meeting: "Kerry promised to spend the first 100 days of his administration traveling the world to denounce his predecessor, apologize for his ‘radically wrong' policy, and seek ‘cooperation and compromise` with friend and foe alike." Timmerman cited a seven-page e-mail, "confirmed as authentic...

STOP APOLOGIZING ALREADY by Timothy Rollins, Editor and Publisher May 24, 2004 With all the bellyaching going on in Washington and the handwringing over a few prisoners mistreated at Abu Ghraib, it's a wonder any governing at all goes on in the halls of Congress. The fact of the matter is no governing is going on right now. Why? Because of preening by a handful of prima donna congressional types (mostly Democrats) seeking free face time on the evening newscasts, and networks all too willing to be their willing accomplices.What the hell has become of this country when Iraqi prisoner...

Rarely, if ever, has this space devoted any time to gratuitous name-calling and cavalier demonstrations against anyone or anything. But today will be different. Today, "I settle all family business," as matter of factly declared by Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 gangster classic, "The Godfather." The family I will speak of and per chance speak for in this tidy little philippic is the typical American family of citizens; the type of people who put their pants on one leg at a time. It is a large family, consisting of many races and religions, both man and women. What...

Our President has had a tough time of late. But, despite some misgivings on domestic issues, I remain a huge supporter of President Bush. I believe that he is a good man in the true sense of the word and that he understands the peril our nation finds itself. Immediately after 9/11, I believe that President Bush gathered key members of his cabinet along with his closest advisors and determined that the threat of a catastrophic repeat of 9/11 (or worse) was a clear and present danger. Accordingly, we learned of the Bush Doctrine - that not only would we...

Back and forth all week long it was counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke versus the Bush Administration. Charges and counter charges. It was hard to keep track of it all. On paper, the Administration won. They produced a letter of resignation, a transcript of an off-the-record briefing and two books in which Clarke contradicts what he told the 9/11 Commission. The Commission is in the midst of trying to find out who is to blame for the greatest attack on the United States in her entire existence. In testimony before the 9/11 Commission Clarke said the Clinton Administration was totally focused...

Bill Clinton did it. Janet and Justin did it. Pete Rose did it, sort of, but far too late. Disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan did it, too. “It” is apologize, be sorry, publicly ask for forgiveness. Or in the case of Khan, the Pakistani Dr. Strangelove caught selling nuclear secrets, beg for mercy. Trouble is, few sounded like they meant it. If these luminaries have the chutzpah to flaunt their actions in the public realm, they can darn well issue a real apology in public, too. British author G.K. Chesterton had it right: “A stiff apology is a second...

Nobody has staying power in American political life unless he can deliver a good, rousing public apology rightly timed. Yet it's difficult to say you're sorry. Particularly if you want to be contrite without getting into what you're contrite about. Say what you want about the Arnold Schwarzenegger's lack of political experience, he has the apologetic instincts of an experienced pro. He had for weeks been denying reports that he sexually harassed women, and it was time to put the stories to rest. After characterizing some reports as "trash politics," he shifted gear and apologized: "What I want to say...

<p>KNOXVILLE — The state's Republican chairwoman has sent letters of apology to Buddhists and Hindus for a party brochure intended as an attack on Democrat Phil Bredesen.</p> <p>During Bredesen's successful campaign for governor, Republicans mailed a brochure to rural voters contending the curriculum Bredesen implemented as Nashville's mayor mandated the teaching of Buddhism and Hinduism to second-graders.</p>

<p>Good morning, this is the office of Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott. How may we help you? Uh-huh, you'd like to schedule an apology? Let's see here.</p> <p>The soonest the senator will be available to make a personal mea culpa is May 17. He's currently on his sackcloth and ashes tour, which has him in Nome, Alaska, this evening apologizing to Aleuts. Now that the senator has resigned from his post as Republican majority leader in the U.S.</p>

Apology accepted? It depends Record often speaks louder than words in surviving racial gaffes 12/17/2002 By BILL MARVEL / The Dallas Morning News When it comes to race, apologies may not be enough. Trent Lott's situation shows that what a politician has or hasn't done on racial issues may do more to determine his fate than mere words of repentance, observers say. "Race is the 'third rail' of American politics," said Dallas political consultant Rob Allyn. "They can survive financial scandals, sex scandals, foreign policy scandals. But let them make one remark in this area and it's all over."...

Waddle meets with survivors of Ehime Maru accident Yomiuri ShimbunScott Waddle, the former skipper of the USS Greeneville, a U.S. Navy submarine involved in a fatal collision with a Japanese fisheries training vessel off Hawaii last year, met four survivors of the accident at a hotel in Uwajima, Ehime Prefecture, on Sunday.Nine people aboard the Ehime Maru, including four students from Uwajima Fisheries High School, were killed in the accident on Feb. 9, 2001.Waddle had expressed a desire to meet all of the nine surviving students. The four students, who have since graduated, agreed.During their 30-minute meeting, Waddle offered a...

I have personally apologized to Constitution Day for the article I posted earlier today. I am now apologizing to all that read it. I posted it only for discussion. I have seen worse on FR and thought it would be fine. The title of the article was Destruction of America. It had alot of Jew Bashing. As I told Constitution Day, many of my friends and colleagues are Jewish. I respect them highly. ONCE AGAIN SORRY.