EDITORIAL: A word on behalf of apologies

Dec. 20—Can we offer a word — make that two — on behalf of a phrase that has apparently gone out of style — two simple words that havce been too long and too often maligned.

Those two words: "I'm sorry."

They rank up there with "please" and "thank you" as the oil that makes for a more polite, more gracious, and, let's face it, a more pleasant world.

But the phrase "I'm sorry" has gotten a bad rap in recent years.

Most recently, it was targeted by a man few of us had heard of until he was accused of a crime — Christian Ziegler, the former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, now accused of rape.

The courts will have to sort that out, but what got our attention was advice Ziegler reportedly gave to another group recently, which came to light following the charges. According to the Florida Phoenix, during a "media training session" for the group that got in trouble, Ziegler's counsel was: "Never apologize. Ever."

"This is my view. Other people have different views on this. I think apologizing makes you weak," he added.

This unfortunate way of thinking has a pedigree that can be traced back through John Wayne, who said something similar in a 1949 western, "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon."

"Never apologize, mister," Wayne's character says. "It's a sign of weakness."

We have always though the opposite — apologizing is a sign of strength, of character.

Perhaps this disparagement goes back even further to a former British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, who is given credit for saying: "Never explain. Never apologize." Former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes supposedly said: "I don't apologize for anything. When I make a mistake, I take the blame and go on from there."

Whatever the origin of the phrase — and the sentiment — it's nonsense. It's not the way adults behave. It's not behavior they we should model for children.

We know the phrase "I'm sorry" has been cheapened by its overuse by politicians and others who have been caught in compromising and unseemly behavior, but the two words have power to, well, turn away wrath, as the Good Book says.

An antidote to this can be found in Ron Chernow's biography of former president Ulysses Grant, who, believing himself betrayed by former Sen. Charles Sumner, required an apology, but doubted he would ever get it. Grant said of Sumner: "He has not the manliness to admit an error."

Let's dispense once and for all with the hogwash that apologies make people look weak.

The opposite is true, and a return of these two words is — we're sorry to say — overdue.