The apology offensive

Michael Kingsley:

First of all, I unequivocally dissociate myself from remarks by my second cousin to the effect that my worthy opponent is a "prize bitch." My cousin is a dog breeder and thought she was being complimentary. She did not appreciate that such phraseology could give offense to certain segments of the population who are unfamiliar with dogs. Nevertheless, there is no room for canine imagery in a national political campaign, and Cousin Maisie has dropped out of our family in order to avoid causing any distraction from the central issues that we ought to be debating, such as terrorism and health care.

In that spirit, I call upon my opponent to say that she forthrightly rejects statements made by her hairdresser, and caught on videotape, that "black people have curly hair." This stereotype has a long history of use by racists, and, quite frankly, the facts that this hairdresser is black and serves mostly black customers and obviously had no intention of causing offense and doesn't really know my opponent at all and has never done her hair until once last week and only made the statement when pressed by a group of reporters to reflect on the differences between the candidates from her professional point of view, do not make her remark "okay" or "totally irrelevant, for Christ's sake -- can't we talk about something important?" -- as some commentators have suggested.

Am I offended by this remark? Well, I'm working on it. At first I thought, "Well, honestly, who gives a #@$?" But I have come to realize that my opponent will stop at nothing in her insatiable quest for remarks by me and others to rip out of context and take umbrage over, and I have reluctantly concluded that there cannot be unilateral disarmament here. So, yes, I am deeply, deeply offended.

Is this part of a scheme by my opponent to introduce race into the campaign? That's not for me to say. It is my job to talk about the issues, such as health care and the subprime mortgage crisis. It is your job as members of the press to ignore all that boring crap and to fan the flames of phony issues with no evidence whatsoever, and I call upon you to do your job.

...

There is more tongue in cheek fun. He doesn't focus on McCain's preemptive apologies for his audiences jokes about candidates for whom McCain has great respect, as he reminds everyone he will run a respectful campaign with no fun allowed.