I know, it's an impossible request. But it would be great if people in the public arena would just accept the fact that their friends and opponents are prone to using heated rhetoric to make a point.
Right now, we're riding the crest of a wave of demands for apologies. I'm not going to defend comparisons of prison camps or public officials to the Nazi regime. And I was pleased some years ago to watch Dick Armey, then the House majority leader, take to the floor to try to explain his "slip" in referring to Barney Frank as "Barney Fag."
But umbrage at any ill comparison has gotten to be too regular of an occurrence. You can understand why Ted Kennedy is mad at Rick Santorum for saying that Boston, as the "seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism," has an atmosphere that led to sexual abuse of children by the Catholic clergy. And it's no wonder that Republicans are mad at Hillary Clinton for comparing President Bush to "Mad" magazine's scary-doofus mascot Alfred E. Neuman.
But when politicians make such remarks, demanding an apology is exactly the wrong thing to do. We're not kids. We don't need to feel better because the mean bully admitted he was wrong.
Instead, those who are offended should simply repeat the scurrilous remarks, use them for their propaganda value and insist that those who said something offensive embrace their own words, rather than disowning them.
