Sorry? If there is one thing we are not apologising for at openDemocracy it is our timely debate on Sorry: the politics of apology.
Take this week: four high-profile apologies from three of the five continents.
Cardinal Law does it and begs forgiveness. But at least he also resigned.
When he sent the UN his 12,000 page dossier detailing the ways he denies having weapons of mass destruction, Saddam added that he is sorry for invading Kuwait in 1990.
This was very thoughtful of him.
Personally, Im still waiting for him to apologise for nerve-gassing the inhabitants of Halabja (oh, and Id also appreciate a sincere apology from Margaret Thatcher for letting her government sell arms to Saddam shortly afterwards.)
More important for British politics today, Cherie Blair wife of the Prime Minister says sorry and sheds tears for using a conman to help buy a property to protect her son when he went to university.
Something funny is going on in the United Kingdom. Downing Streets chief of communications and others wrote Cheries speech. Is the Court coming apart?
Back in the early 1970s, under attack for illegally bugging his Democratic opponents, President Nixon refused to do contrition. Later he was obliged to resign as Chief of State.
This was interesting because he was the pioneer of mass-communication apology. In 1952 he was tabbed for receiving illegal contributions when he was running as Eisenhowers Vice-President. He went on black and white television with his wife, said he was sorry, pledged to give back the money but added that he would not return their pet dog, Checkers. A then forgiving American public embraced him and his career was saved.
Having done it as none had done it before, perhaps Nixon sensed that contrition fatigue was bound to set in.
This week the Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has apologised for saying he wished Strom Thurmond been elected president in 1948 when he ran on a segregationist ticket.
Whoops. Now he agrees the words were terrible, even poorly chosen and insensitive. He added, I regret the way it has been interpreted.
Nancy Pelosi, the new House Democratic leader, commented, He can apologise all he wants. It doesn't remove the sentiments that escaped his mouth that day at the party.
Good for her. We are planning to extend our debate on the role of apology. In the long, fine essay which began it last month, Marina Warner starts with the Greek dramatist Aeschylus. He has the tortured Io say: do not out of pity comfort me with lies. I count false words the foulest plague of all.
Marina concludes by re-quoting these words.
As false words and their foul odour fill the airways we will do our best to keep them out of openDemocracy.
