A Sorry Example of an Apology

Before the bombs were dropped and everybody started chattering anew about “Wag the Dog,” my friend Steve asked me a question.

“So, what did you think of The Speech?”

The Speech?

“Clinton’s.”

Oh, of course, The Speech.

“What did you think of his performance?”

Well, I can’t say that I was surprised. He seemed smooth. He’s good at that sort of thing.

“I didn’t think he was contrite enough.”

Well, time will tell, I said. (A cop-out for every season.) We’ll see how our fellow Americans react.

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My fellow Americans, I come before you today to confess that I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about The Speech and the man who made it. Maybe you find yourself also feeling queasy, sorting out this mess of moral issues. I suspect millions of Americans do. That’s also why I find myself more skeptical than usual about the polls. Public opinion is always a moving target.

But for what it’s worth, a Los Angeles Times Poll, along with others, says most people still support the president, albeit with many more reservations about his moral character. So much support, yet so much disappointment. My guess is you found similar reactions among family and friends. My survey of friends, from Clinton lovers to Clinton haters, suggests that feelings are, to say the least, complex.

Certainly most of us feel we already know more than we want to know. Certainly we don’t really need a DNA test on the cocktail dress.

But was the president sufficiently contrite? Nope. That’s the finding of my unscientific poll and The Times’ scientific one as well, which found that only one in six considered his confession a sincere apology. Could it be that the president believes that oral sex means never having to say you’re sorry? Or maybe he was afraid that if he said “I’m sorry,” it would have ended “that I got caught.”

Words of apology are something we learn in childhood, something Mom taught us. “Tell her you’re sorry,” Mom might admonish. (And perhaps add: “And say it like you mean it.”) The chastened child would look at the ground in shame as he said the words. Guilt can be a beautiful thing.

Clinton, however, didn’t sound guilt-ridden, but defiant. Interesting how an expression of regret and the verbal assumption of responsibility don’t add up to contrition, not to Steve and many others. Even the words “I apologize” don’t seem to carry the emotional weight of “I’m sorry.”

Certainly nobody wanted the president to do a teary Jimmy Swaggart imitation. Still, it’s interesting that The Speech, so carefully crafted, omitted the phrase. This couldn’t have been an accident, so what was the semantic reasoning here?

Would “I’m sorry” seem too much an acceptance of blame (as opposed to responsibility)? Was he worried that people would stop blaming independent counsel Kenneth Starr for this mess and blame him? Or is it that, as my friend Leah suggests, most people would still consider his contrition insincere? Leah would have--and she admires Clinton.

Leah is an attractive woman, so I can only imagine what was on the president’s mind when he met her last year at a reception. Yes, she says, he is a charismatic, magnetic man. “It’s real,” she says. More important to Leah, the president had met her 10-year-old daughter at a different reception the year before and spent five minutes chatting with her, his attention fully engaged. This is why Leah loves him, and why, now, she is so disappointed. If only he would use his magnetism for something other than seducing an intern, Leah says, “He could be magical.”

Steve has a 10-year-old girl of his own, and that may explain his disgust. One morning she told him about a dream she had featuring Monica S. Lewinsky speaking in Spanish. America’s children should have sweeter dreams. (The Times Poll found that only one in four still considers President Clinton to be “a positive role model.”)

Maggie surprised me. When the allegations first surfaced, and remarkably sent Clinton’s approval rating soaring, Maggie was pleased that America seemed to be growing up, that we were acting more like the French. But when I asked her how she felt now, she had come to the conclusion that Clinton should resign for the good of the country--not because of his moral failings, she said, but because “it’s too distracting.”

Wes didn’t surprise me. A Clinton hater from way back, he gave a cynical laugh and referred to the terrorist retaliations as “the Monica War.”

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Maggie’s comments had me thinking that yes, maybe it’s too distracting--maybe squeaky clean Al Gore should be president. Leah said the president’s resignation “over this” would be ridiculous. Steve said he didn’t think the president should resign, “but Hillary should, as his wife.” (I already knew Wes’ opinion.)

The Speech had me thinking about something my father, then 80 years old, said a few weeks before his recent death. We were watching TV when the ballgame was interrupted by a news bulletin about you-know-what.

“So, what do you think of this stud we have for a president?” he asked, the admiration obvious.

We seldom talked politics. I laughed and asked what he thought.

“I like him. He’s human.”

Remember how the allegations of all-too-human indiscretions initially boosted his approval ratings? Leah suggested that was because Americans, being all too human, “can relate” and thus forgive such transgressions.

It was also quite human of us to suspect the allegations were true and to suspect he was telling a little gray lie. Under the circumstances, many people respected the lie. The truth was something we didn’t want to know, or think we had a right to know.

Considering all this, I still find myself wondering why I feel so disappointed in President Clinton. Now, of course, he has lost the benefit of the doubt, and it all seems so monumentally stupid--a waste of his considerable gifts on cheap thrills.

But I also wonder: Could it be that I wanted him to keep on lying?

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Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St. , Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.