Failure of Clue

[jducoeur]

Y'know, the most irritating thing about Kerry Healey is that she *still* isn't getting it. Slammed to the mat for all of her negative ads, she's switched tone to what I think she sincerely *believes* is a positive ad campaign. But she just can't do it. She's toned it down to merely subtle potshots instead of outrageous ones, but she seems incapable of talking for more than a minute or two without taking them.

It's like the person who, when asked to apologize, comes out with, "I'm really sorry that you feel that way". Not so much a conscious refusal to get the point, so much as an ingrained inability to see what the point is...

Comments

[siderea]

Yeah, now that you point it out... she's mean and dumb.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I'm not watching her closely, but that sort of pretend-apology will work on "the public" fairly often. I could easily see a smart person using it with just that intent. For example, that's the sort of apology the "women are meat" cleric in Australia gave a day or two ago.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

They learn from their leaders and that attracts more of the same like flies on manure. For the last five years, those who rule (and the blowhards-masquerading-as-experts that love them) have used slash-and-smear rhetoric and called it debate. It's been in use for longer, of course, but they didn't rule across the board then. Slowly, but surely, the masses get used to the idea that this is the way to convey your argument.

There's certainly been enough of the faux apologies during this political sedason. I hate the sympathy-masquerading-as-apology with the proverbial passion of a thousand suns. Apologies consist of acknowledgement and contrition before absolution. Unfortunately, that's an older reflex that comes from the inability of any politician to actually admit culpability.