apologist/apologizer

[David Barnhart]

Found recently:



Religious leaders, not surprisingly, are very active apologists. In recent
years Pope John Paul II has asked forgiveness for his church's violence
during the 16th-century Counter-Reformation, for complicity in the African
slave trade and for abuses committed by Christian colonizers against Indian
peoples.  "SAY YOU'RE SORRY; CLEANSE YOURSELF THIS MILLENNIUM; BRITAIN IS
DOING IT," an editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Nexis), June 8,
1997, p E-2



It's a start, but it's not enough. The apologies tendered by Bill Clinton
for the Tuskegee experiments and Tony Blair for the Irish famine only point
up the need for volunteer apologists to aid in this great work. Florence
King, "APOLOGIZER BUNNY SHIFTS INTO OVERDRIVE," a commentary in the Richmond
Times Dispatch (Nexis), August 17, 1997, p F-5



[AN unimpeachable source informs us that the latest rage in Washington is to
take a course in apology-training.

''Politics,'' he explained, ''is having to say you're sorry.''

''Whatever became of assertiveness-training?'' we asked him. .

''Postive? You want positive?'' our source said. ''How about the ploy of
'the one teeny little mistake'? You know, where the apologist says in
effect, 'With all the things I'm doing right, maybe I'm entitled....'''

''Or perhaps you can say, 'I take full responsibility' - without saying for
what,'' we proposed.

Melvin Moddocks, "The new wisdom: always apologize, always explain,"
Christian Science Monitor (Nexis), March 13, 1987, p 23]



I also saw two definitions in _Wikidictionary_.  So, I guess it's here to
stay, at least for a while.



David



Barnhart at highlands.com

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