For at least three separate meanings are in play when it comes to exceptionalism, with a different apology backing each.
Earlier, Franken had in fact apologized to his accusers, and he didn't take his apologies back now, but he made it plain that they had been issued in the hopes of facilitating a conversation and an investigation that would clear him.
Nunberg also traces the lineage of the term "non-apology" back to J. Edgar Hoover in the early 1970s, who had to issue one (which was then christened, for the first time in print, a "non-apology"), for making the following statement: "You never have to bother about a president being shot by Puerto Ricans or Mexicans.
The limp, sycophantic, and often absurd non-sequiturs that have spewed from West's mouth and Twitter page around those two jaw-droppingly stupid moments in modern history have led us here, to this cowardly non-apology backed by a TMZ clarification, rifled off on a Tuesday evening.
Through e-mails, conference calls and discreet meetings, at least four drafts of the American apology went back and forth.
Herman Badillo, chairman of the City University of New York, had an apology thrown back in his face by students after he made off-kilter remarks last year about Mexicans and Dominicans.
The UP3 tracker, announced in November 2014, faced numerous delays, and cited manufacturing problems with an initial apology made back in February.
Throughout all of human history, the remedy for an insult has been an apology, even back when overdressed men in stockings used to shoot at each other at twenty paces over them.
