The Very Public Apology

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's recent apology concerning his affinity for high-priced call girls brought his political career to an end and also garnered wide media attention.

Perhaps this particular apology was so widely scrutinized because we all love a good sex scandal or maybe it was because the apology he delivered was so inadequate that we were both outraged by the lame mea culpa and embarrassed for his wife who had to endure listening to it while she stood beside him.

Spitzer's apology was so poorly received that he even got media coverage from his neighbors to the North when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ran an interesting segment on this very public apology.

Our team thinks it's a pretty good piece (although not very detailed) but well worth a view...so check it out!

Maxim Apology Watch: Still Waiting.

David Peisner, the freelance writer responsible for writing the recent Maxim reviews of new (but not yet released or available) CDs by the Black Crowes and rap star Nas, offered the following in his defense:

"I was assigned to write previews of the Black Crowes and Nas albums. I did that. When the issue came out, the previews were laid out as reviews complete with star ratings. I never at any point or to anyone claimed to have heard these albums in their entirety. Whatever decisions Maxim made after I turned in my work were beyond my control."

Black Crowes' manager Pete Angelus made the following statement in response to Peisner's claims.

"[Maxim] issued a partial apology to their readership, but no apology directly to the artist whose work they denigrated without having heard more than one song, while attempting to pass it off as an album review. I think Peisner’s claim is absurd. He wrote a review of music that he never heard, he disparaged both the band and the material. He said, ‘It hasn’t left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth,’ and yet now he’s going to attempt to pass off his actions on Maxim? Absurd.”

Notice the emphasis Angus places on the "partial apology" as a source of the band's anger and frustration, a point he has repeated in other statements. As the Perfect Apology team explained here and predicted here things are going to get much worse for Maxim, simply because they failed at the start to issue a simple, honest apology to the band.

More PA Comments on the "Timing" of Recent HGH-Steroid Induced-Baseball Apologies

All of these apologies were issued AFTER the Mitchell report. This is not an insignificant point, because the exact same apology would have a completely different meaning if issued before the Mitchell investigation or report. Even a weak apology (like Gagne's) would have had a considerably more powerful and meaningful impact had the admission and apology come without being provoked by the full weight of a congressional committee. Consider the underlying sentiments in the statements made by those who apologized recently, and what these statements say about the timing of the apologies they were forced to issue.

Matt Herges:

"I screwed up and I crossed the line. I feel like I've been shown mercy in all of this. If I'm not standing there naked in front of the world with my big secret, I'd still be holding onto it, hiding it. It would still be eating at me. It's not fun by any stretch holding onto something like that, so secretive, so dirty. I'm grateful it's out there. I'm freed a little bit, a lot actually."

In other words, take away Mitchell and we have no apology. Herges goes on to state:

"When people see someone broken and they see humility about it, I think people appreciate that. I think that's what people want. I think that's what our country wants. People are like, 'Just admit, show that you're sorry, legitimately, and we'll forgive you.' I did this because I needed to do this. No matter what the penalty, I was still going to admit it and apologize."

It's certainly possible that Herges did this because he "needed to do it", but he needed to do it because of Mitchell's investigation and report -- it was provoked not by some internal compulsion to come clean regardless of the consequences, but because the report provided a very convenient opportunity to bare his soul. But a willingness to suffer the costs of an apology issued 'after' Mitchell's report is less impressive than suffering the pain and sacrifice had Herges (or Pettitte, Gagne, etc.) admitted to these mistakes long before the pressure became too great, and the answer so obvious.

The same post-Mitchell sentiments were expressed by Lo Duco:

“You do something wrong in your life and you get away with it, you still have something inside you that burns. And it’s been a big relief for me to know that I’ve come to grips with it. That I made a mistake.”

In other words, Mitchell did these guys a huge favor.