*Here's a good article I read during that Simon/Grier incident (note-though I may be a fan, I don't condone what Simon said. However, I also think he was truly apologetic):
Thursday, November 20, 1997
Public figures have problem with remorse
"Chris Simon begged forgiveness.
His voice was halting, his eyes downcast, his shoulders slumped by shame. As far as I could tell, no prepared text guided him. Instead, he simply faced the camera and expressed deepest humiliation and most profound sorrow. He seemed to struggle as he spoke.
Simon is a forward for the Washington Capitals hockey team who recently used a racial slur against Mike Grier, a black player from an opposing squad. None of which has any bearing upon our purpose here today.
You see, I find myself less intrigued by the incident than by the apology it triggered. I'm hard put to remember the last time a public figure expressed remorse and made me believe there was really any there.
It's not that there's been any shortage of wrongdoing. To the contrary, recent years have brought us a seamy bounty of hitters and spitters, lie-tellers, back-biters and ear-chewers. We've seen corporations caught in discrimination and famous people with their feet wedged way past their molars.
And we've seen apologies, too -- slickly crafted written statements often followed by carefully orchestrated acts of contrition.
What we haven't seen much of is real regret. People who seemed genuinely remorseful for their misdeeds.
Public penitence has become a process, stage-managed by media consultants whose advice never varies: Admit the wrongdoing, express contrition and move on -- preferably all in one breath. Nobody says you have to be sorry.
And I would argue that too many are not. That they're insulated by sycophants, bootlicks and yes-people to the point that the very idea of personal accountability seems alien and strange. Responsibility is something to be finessed, spun, handled, paid off ... everything but personally felt. Think of Mike Tyson reading a prepared statement almost certainly written for him by a committee of his handlers after he bit a piece out of Evander Holyfield's ear.
Think of Marv Albert offering a grudging and remorseless apology on the witness stand during the sentencing phase of his assault trial.
Perhaps most damning of all, think of President Clinton's response to allegations of campaign finance irregularities: "Mistakes were made," he said.
Mistakes were made, he said. Note that he never says by whom, leaving us to assume, I suppose, that the mistakes made themselves.
But so it goes in the new era of public penitence.
Harry S. Truman would be appalled. He was, you will recall, the president who kept on his desk a sign that said, "The buck stops here."
Nowadays, the buck gets passed like the common cold. And when it cannot be passed, when there must be accountability, we get apologies that carry asterisks of self-justification and outright insincerity. If the president of the United States can't stand up and say, "I screwed up," perhaps it's understandable that a boxer would need a committee's help and a sportscaster might find it nearly impossible.
Small wonder we quickly stop listening. Public apologies become so much yatta yatta yatta, so much background chatter and fill. We accept them as part of the game, part of the hustle, an elaborate dance whereby those who get caught in the wrong express their sincere, heartfelt desire to be allowed to continue their lucrative careers.
They pretend to be remorseful and we pretend to believe them. We don't linger on it -- we're grateful for at least the appearance of propriety -- but at the same time, we realize that something necessary is missing from the thing.
Humility.
And penitence.
That, I think, is what I caught in Chris Simon's voice and face, why he was able to speak the same words others do and make me believe when they cannot. The difference between him and them was as stark as moonlight -- so plain to see that what followed seemed not slick nor staged. Indeed, seemed only natural and right. Mike Grier forgave Chris Simon.
And I did, too."
Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald.
