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Public Address
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Up Front: Not Such a Hard Word After All

Posted at 3:56PM on 15 Aug 08. Permalink.

I love public apologies. They’re so deliciously awkward. Basically, you’re starting off already screwed, then seeing how much deeper you can make the hole before shutting your mouth.

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I love public apologies. They’re so deliciously awkward. Basically, you’re starting off already screwed, then seeing how much deeper you can make the hole before shutting your mouth.

The Veitch Apology has been well chewed-over, but I want to touch on it as an example of an obviously-flawed public apology. The person who wrote 'no excuses, except' should be dragged into a dark alley by the heavies from the Speech-Writers' Association and given a stern and grammatically-correct telling-off. Honestly, at least put some space between 'inexcusable' and your excuses. Rookie mistake.

At the other end of the scale, our own Prime Minister has become a doyenne of apologising for things she didn’t do or wasn’t around for. Agent Orange. Influenza in Samoa. The historic treatment of New Zealand Chinese. For a while it looked like she was jonesing for more stuff to apologise for.

My personal favourite was her apology to the White House for her statement that the U.S. would not have invaded Iraq if Al Gore was president. 'I’m sorry if you took offence' fills the role of an apology without actually being one. Its real job is to make the injured party look like a dick. Not that, in this case, they needed the help. (Briefly, if you believe that invading Iraq was the right thing to do, then Clark’s insinuation that Gore would be too big a pussy to do it is actually a compliment.)

The Pope's been riding the apology pony pretty hard since he took office, too. There was that 'offensive to Islam' thing pretty much right off the blocks. The official apology said he was:

very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers.

Sorry if you took offence. Cry-baby.

Since then he's been on his Apologising for Sexual Abuse World Tour. He warmed up in the U.S. in April, then moved on to the grand apology in Australia for World Youth Day.

We have to see what was insufficient in our behaviour and how we can prevent, and heal, reconcile. It must be clear, being a priest is incompatible with this behaviour because priests are in the service of Our Lord.

Because yes, previously we'd been a bit grey on the compatibility of molesting children and priesting. Glad we've cleared that up.

And while the apology made no mention of the systematic protection of priests by the Catholic Church and their concealment of abuse, at least the victims could be assured that the Pope "share(d) in their suffering". But just in case people got too carried away with understanding and contrition, Bishop Anthony Fisher got in before the Pope and laid some understanding ground-work:

Happily, I think most of Australia was enjoying delighting in the beauty and goodness of these young people… rather than, than dwelling crankily, as a few people are doing, on old wounds

Silly cranky rape victims.

My favourite apology of the year so far has been somewhat more obscure. This is the breath-taking apology of "Michelle", the dominatrix who filmed Max Mosley at a BDSM orgy. Briefly, she had gone to the News of the World, told them Mosley had commissioned a ‘scene’, and been given a small camera, US$24,000, and instructions to see if she could get him to give a Nazi salute.

You can watch Michelle's apology here, delivered on Sky News shortly after she was unable to appear to testify on the matter in court, due to emotional distress. She is obviously deeply contrite that her deliberate actions had logical consequences that were, to her, apparently completely unforeseeable.

It was absolutely terrible, it was really difficult to do. Mainly because you are feeling a nervous wreck, you are doing something you shouldn't be doing and obviously it wasn't very nice at all. It was a horrible situation.

Events obviously spiralled out of her control after she shopped one of her clients to a tabloid. For a start, it turned out his wife was quite distressed. "She didn't ask for this and I am very very sorry that it came out how it did." As opposed to coming out as a nature documentary?

Even worse, poor Michelle's poor husband had to resign his job with MI5. (Imagine the work parties. "Your wife looks vaguely familiar, have we met somewhere?") To be honest, in a profession that relies on discretion, I wouldn’t be rushing to use her services, either. (Dominatrices are in an odd position in Britain, where the law doesn’t recognise the possibility of consenting to assault.)

Mosley, meanwhile, sued the NOTW for invasion of privacy and won £60,000.

For those interested, PerfectApology.com has a list of criteria, by which you can assess public apologies for Epic Fail. Veitch, for instance, fails on #1, 3, 4 and 8. Perhaps Paul Holmes could give it a quick shuftie.

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giovanni tiso
From: Wellington
Since: Jun 2007
Posts: 1195

Posted at 3:56PM on 15 Aug 08. Permalink.

I think the previous Pope's "pardoning and rehabilitating" of Galileo takes some serious beating in terms of non-apology apology.

Emma Hart
From: Christchurch
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1151

Posted at 4:04PM on 15 Aug 08. Permalink.

I think the previous Pope's "pardoning and rehabilitating" of Galileo takes some serious beating in terms of non-apology apology.

Yes, just a teeny bit too late.

I'm also a big fan of the Catholic Church's 'oh, BTW, turns out Mary Magdalene wasn't a prostitute after all' sorry.

giovanni tiso
From: Wellington
Since: Jun 2007
Posts: 1195

Posted at 4:15PM on 15 Aug 08. Permalink.

Yes, just a teeny bit too late.

It's not so much that, it's the fact that they pardoned him. The Onion's Pope Forgives Molested Children piece as usually was not that far removed from reality.

Rochelle Hume
From: Warkworth
Since: Sep 2007
Posts: 27

Posted at 4:33PM on 15 Aug 08. Permalink.

Love the apology website - who thinks of such things?

Craig Ranapia
From: North Shore, Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 4375

Posted at 4:55PM on 15 Aug 08. Permalink.

Sorry if you took offence. Cry-baby.

Well, down here in little old Middle Earth the passive-agressive "fuck you sookie-bubba" non-apology is an entirely secular art. I wonder if the State Services Commission has a handy super-secret template so civil servants can just churn 'em out with a single key stroke... :)

Skinny
From: Wellington
Since: Aug 2007
Posts: 7

Posted at 7:48PM on 15 Aug 08. Permalink.

Rumours are that the short man who was once on TV and is now getting ready to retire from radio wrote Veitch's sorry script.

Ben Austin
From: London
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 557

Posted at 9:28PM on 15 Aug 08. Permalink.

The Pope's been riding the apology pony pretty hard since he took office...

Love this turn of phrase.

Craig Ranapia
From: North Shore, Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 4375

Posted at 12:44AM on 16 Aug 08. Permalink.

For those interested, PerfectApology.com has a list of criteria, by which you can assess public apologies for Epic Fail.

And I've got a ninth criteria: Sincerity.

Seriously. What really got on my last nerve about Veitch's apology, was that it might not have satisfied any of the criteria Perfect Apology came up with, but it reeked of something carefully drafted by a PR consultant, vetted by I don't want to know how many lawyers so as not to admit anything that would come back to bite in court then stage managed liked a haute couture runway show.

Emma Hart
From: Christchurch
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1151

Posted at 11:12AM on 16 Aug 08. Permalink.

What really got on my last nerve about Veitch's apology, was that it might not have satisfied any of the criteria Perfect Apology came up with, but it reeked of something carefully drafted by a PR consultant

I'd been trying to work out what bothered me so much about the Veitch apology (apart from the obvious, k?), and until I read that article, I hadn't realised how big an impression the time delay had made on me. I think it could have been a tour de force of apparent sincerity, and after that much time had gone by I'd just have assumed his 'team' had him in serious rehearsals. "Okay, now again, but this time let the lip quiver just a bit..."

If you watch the Michelle interview, at one point the reporter says to her 'you're obviously very upset'. She is, really? I couldn't see it, but maybe it was the obscuring cloak of Englishness.

B Jones
From: Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 227

Posted at 11:19AM on 16 Aug 08. Permalink.

Without having seen it, I suspect that in that context, "obviously" means "one would expect this to be the case, but we have to ask because it's not all that obvious to us, and we'd like to reassure ourselves and our viewers that we're not being played here."

Tim Michie
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 123

Posted at 9:16PM on 16 Aug 08. Permalink.

And let's not forget Bush's regret ovre the war/s: his language...

steven crawford
From: wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 888

Posted at 10:09PM on 16 Aug 08. Permalink.

I like that word 'regret' "I sincerely regretted vomiting all over your carpet" meaning, I spewed up, but I'm feeling better now.

Sacha
From: Ak
Since: May 2008
Posts: 885

Posted at 7:53AM on 17 Aug 08. Permalink.

And now Veitch's similarly unapologetic wife wades in with more "it's not fair" whining:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4659090a11.html

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10527461&pnum=0

Apparently the police should be there to "protect" her and her hubby, rather than investigate him.

Lucy Stewart
From: Christchurch, NZ
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 266

Posted at 9:27AM on 17 Aug 08. Permalink.

Apparently the police should be there to "protect" her and her hubby, rather than investigate him.

And she rather strongly implies that Dunne-Powell should just build a bridge and get over it, because she has. Ew.

Emma Hart
From: Christchurch
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1151

Posted at 1:37PM on 17 Aug 08. Permalink.

OTOH, I might well forgive the person who gave me this.

(Yes, I'm linking to Cake Wrecks, but at least it's on a weekend.)

Russell Brown
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 5336
Moderator

Posted at 1:48PM on 17 Aug 08. Permalink.

And now Veitch's similarly unapologetic wife wades in with more "it's not fair" whining:

That's two weekends in a row that both papers (and for all I know, the Sunday News too) have been fed stories sympathetic to Veitch.

I've no doubt there's a PR campaign in operation. I find it distasteful.

steven crawford
From: wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 888

Posted at 3:07PM on 17 Aug 08. Permalink.

Kevin Rudd, sorry for pinching the children.

JohnAmiria
From: hither and yon
Since: Aug 2008
Posts: 215

Posted at 4:37PM on 17 Aug 08. Permalink.

I've no doubt there's a PR campaign in operation. I find it distasteful.

I think you're right on both counts Russell, but I'm wondering what the alternative is. If Veitch does nothing he gets fried by the media and will be convicted by the Court of Public Opinion well before he actually gets to trial.

As distasteful as it is, I think there are questions about the timing of these complaints. I speculate (since I don't know the facts) that Dunne-Powell made this matter public after she spent the settlement money or when a gag clause ran out. I think Mrs Veitch is right when she says

Veitch is unsure why Dunne-Powell laid a complaint two-and-a-half years after the incident but assumes her husband's former partner has not let go of the relationship.

That said, what he did was terrible and he deserves to be charged.

steven crawford
From: wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 888

Posted at 4:55PM on 17 Aug 08. Permalink.

That said, what he did was terrible and he deserves to be charged.

I spose that means, I make no apology for his behavior, but... there there might be mitigating factors, before the fact.

JohnAmiria
From: hither and yon
Since: Aug 2008
Posts: 215

Posted at 5:36PM on 17 Aug 08. Permalink.

I spose that means, I make no apology for his behavior, but... there there might be mitigating factors, before the fact.

You suppose wrongly. Completely wrongly. Might I suppose from your response to my comment that you can't actually comprehend what I have written? I've re-read my comments and don't see any ambiguity: "what he did was terrible and he deserves to be charged."

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