It is no surprise that the New York Post has taken a page from fellow Fox team player Bill O'Reilly in the non-artful realm of the non-apology apology.
Amid picketing and the angry response to the tasteless cartoon regarding the gunning down of a chimpanzee the Post has issued an "apology" on its own unique terms that smacks hard of a non-apology, to wit, an editorial on the Post's website was "meant to mock" the stimulus bill promoted by President Obama but "to those who were offended by the image, we apologize."
Actually, who were the critics, and were they included in the apology? The editorial asserts that the image was, in the words of MSNBC, "exploited by its longtime antagonists."
The editorial further asserts that those people who had longstanding differences with the Post saw the cartoon "as an opportunity for payback." These purported mischief makers were labeled "opportunists" alongside the gritty pronouncement, "To them, no apology is due."
The Post's editorial crystallized the picture. Critics who have in the past found the Post short of a modern day enactment of the journalistic ideals set forth by the likes of Joseph Pulitzer and Lincoln Steffens, and found fault with ill-tempered Col Allan's editorial domain, are trouble makers.
They are accordingly recognized as such, and hence no apology is forthcoming to anyone caucusing with that group of troublemakers.
Who does that leave in the ranks of the element toward which the "apology" was delivered? We offer to write that part for Mr. Allan and his crew:
"To those of you listeners of Rush Limbaugh and viewers of Fox News and dedicated television journalists such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.
"To you who support us regularly here at the New York Post, and loyally supported the previous administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and oppose the current Democrat Party regime of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, to those of you we know to be sincere and patriotic Americans who also happen to read our newspaper, to you we humbly apologize if we have indeed offended you."
So how many of the loyal supporters, those who have not seen fit to criticize the Post in the past, were offended by the cartoon in question? A reasonable guess would be none.
Since those in the aforementioned category were not offended while those who had been critical of the Post in the past were rebuked and specifically not included, then do we not at the end of the day have a circuitous non-apology with an angry slap directed toward those who had criticized the Post past or present?
Fellow Fox team player Bill O'Reilly followed a similar route after assuring his viewers and listeners that the "weapons of mass destruction" the Bush administration direly proclaimed were possessed by Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein actually existed. If it turned out that they did not exist, he would then apologize.
After gagging out a sad facsimile of an apology after it became public knowledge that the alleged weapons of mass destruction never existed, Reilly then went on offense.
O'Reilly warned Barbra Streisand, who spoke forcefully against invading Iraq, along with others who agreed with her, that once American service personnel flew or set foot in that nation that they become totally silent. To voice opposition at such a time was intolerable and detrimental to the national interest.
So here is O'Reilly logic, brazenness after his confident claim has been shattered.
A stated reason for invading another nation has been irrefutably invalidated. An invading force attacks and occupies that same nation.
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