Obama Began His Presidency With an Apology Tour

This debate is about whether “apology tour” is a reasonable name for President Obama's initial overseas trip to the Middle East. con did well to challenge me. That's what a debate site is for. The debate is all about semantics , but meaning is important, especially when the President speaks. Definition. An apology is “an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret apology> .” [1. http://www.merriam-webster.com...] Admission of error. President Obama's speeches where marked by his claims that past US policies and actions were wrong. No seem to argue that fact. Video clips and transcripts are given at [2. http://factreal.wordpress.com...] These include, ““While the United States has done much to promote peace and prosperity in the hemisphere, we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms.” ““While the United States has done much to promote peace and prosperity in the hemisphere, we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms.” Regret. An “apology” is an acknowledgment of guilt followed by an expression of contrition. Obama didn't explicitly say he was sorry for past bad acts, so critics of the term “apology tour” say it's wrong to use that term. Because he didn't say the words “I apologize” or “I'm sorry” the claim is he didn't apologize. So critics, out of their deep concern over the precision of language, do critics of apology tour insist it should be called the “confession tour”? A confession is an admission of guilt without necessarily any expression of regret, so that reflects their view. I can find none of the critics of the term “apology tour” insisting it be called the “confession tour.” Their goal is that Obama should not be criticized for trashing the country he leads. President Obama's litany of criticisms of his country may or may not be true. What matters for this debate is that the President sincerely confessed, certainly many in the audience will agree. Claiming that everything he said is true means that his expression of guilt was both sincere and correct. It cannot remove the charge of it being an apology. Before addressing the issue of whether the President expressed regret, I need to establish to preliminary points. a. The popular names of events are not nuanced. It is therefore foolish to demand high precision in the name. A major construction project that tore up central Boston was called “The Big Dig,” not “The road project through central Boston including substantial excavation, road construction, and building a new major tunnel under the harbor.” Dr. King's famous speech on the capitol mall that included a vision of racial equality is called “The Dream Speech,” never mind other things discussed. b. When an important person speaks, only the unexpected is news. It's useful to compare Obama's apology tour remarks to Mitt Romney's remarks in London before the Olympics. Romney was asked what he thought of the prospects for the Games. Romney said there was a risk of problems with security. Romney was factually correct. A private security firm who had been contracted to provide 13,000 security guards had failed to fulfill their commitments, so at the last minute there was a scramble to come up with security staff. Romney was well-qualified as anyone to opine on the subject, since Romney had headed the organizing of Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The Brits were offended, and pundits including conservatives widely panned his remarks as insensitive and poor diplomacy. The criticisms mounted despite the opinion being correct, and Romney being well-qualified to have the opinion. Note also, the rest of Romney's comments were ignored in favor of the issue that Olympic criticism. When Obama trashed the U.S. that was the news, and it was all that his audience cared about. Never mind the rest of his message. The tour is not going to be called “The New Caring and Balanced Approach to Foreign Policy Overcoming the Narrow-minded Arrogance of the Past Tour.” – not even if you think that's true. c. Expressions of contrition need not be explicit statements. For\example. small child accidentally breaks something and brings the broken object to his parents while crying. No words are spoken, but the child has both admitted guilt and expressed regret. That's an apology. Or a young man gets in a fight with his girlfriend, then shows up at her doorstep with flowers (or a bag of weed, or whatever). Again, there is both admission of guilt and expression of regret before words are spoken. It's an apology. Now to the question of whether Obama expressed regret. My contentions are: 1. For the President, admission of guilt is implicit expression of regret. Presidents are politicians who are acutely aware of implications. Either Obama expressed regret or did not express regret. If he confessed guilt and did not implicitly express regret he would be saying “The U.S. did wrong, but I, as President, do not care. Perhaps we will continue to do wrong, or perhaps not. I won't say.” If that was what he believed, he would not have confessed guilt in the first place. If you hold open the option of doing more bad things, you don't define them as bad and draw attention to them. If you do not regret past acts, you say nothing. The political benefit from making the confession derives entirely from implying that past bad acts are regretted. 2. The President expressed regret by promising rehabilitation. “So I’m here to launch a new chapter of engagement that will be sustained throughout my administration. The United States will be willing to acknowledge past errors where those errors have been made.” “That’s why I can stand here today and say without equivocation or exception that the United States of America does not and will not torture.” [2] President Obama is emphatic about changing past policies. That's an acknowledgment that he regrets past policies. 3. The audience understood it as an apology. U.S. standing in the Arab world soared after the Cairo speech on the apology tour. They understood it as an apology for U.S. policy, and especially for supporting Israel. However, by last year, “The United States' popularity in the Arab world has plummeted to levels lower than the last year of the George W Bush administration, according to a new survey of public opinion in six Arab countries ...” [3. http://www.aljazeera.com...] Popularity would not have soared and fallen if the speech were interpreted merely as a renewed commitment to freedom and democracy. The name "apology tour" is appropriate because is aptly summarizes the news made by President Obama's series of speeches. It's news when a President goes out of his way to confess past policies were wrong, and promising to make amends with new policies. The regret for past policies is thereby implicit and clear. Guilt plus regret is apology. Q.E.D.