Spin Means Always Having to Say You're Sorry

Who’s sorry now? Lots of people these days are rushing to the cameras, claiming to be misunderstood -- but none of them seems truly regretful.

Saying that one is sorry, of course, is just the beginning. Those who are genuinely apologetic know that repentance is a stern taskmaster. According to Catholic doctrine, for example, "contrition" is "a sorrow of soul and a hatred of sin committed, with a firm purpose of not sinning in the future."

In other words, if you are contrite, you really have to mean it. So we can make short work, then, of Randall Tobias, who, until resigning suddenly Friday, was deputy secretary of State, overseeing, among other concerns, anti-AIDS abstinence programs. The married Tobias admitted to ABC News that he called an escort service "to have gals come over to the condo and give me a massage," but insisted that "no sex" was involved.

But, if the Bush administration believed Tobias’ story, why did he resign? And, if his bosses didn’t believe him, why should the rest of us?

Bottom line: Tobias is not contrite; he does not yet hate the sin he committed, even if his wife might find a way to keep him from committing it again.

Another miscreant who obviously isn’t sincerely sorry is Don Imus, the ex-shock jock. After a career of calling people names, he went over the line in slurring the female Rutgers basketballers. He issued a couple of grudgingly remorseful statements, then announced that he was done with the sorry routine: "I’m going to apologize but we gotta move on."

Unfortunately for Imus, the transgressor can only make his best case for forgiveness. It’s up to the world to decide whether to accept the apology. And, in Imus’ case, it was not accepted because few saw in him a firm purpose never to name-call again.

Next up in the "Sorry/Not Sorry" dock is former CIA Director George Tenet, who collected a $4-million book advance so that he could spin his role in the Iraq War -- specifically, that his now-notorious "slam dunk" phrase was taken out of context.

Well, Tenet said those war-justifying words in December 2002, and yet he just smiled as they were cited by President George W. Bush for the year-and-a-half that he clung to his perch. And Tenet held his tongue when awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in December 2004.

Only now, after all these years of debacle, does he wish to undunk himself from Iraq, because, as he told 60 Minutes, he is now seen as an "idiot." So he’s out to fix that by spinning on TV.

Well, it’s one thing to make a mistake, even a big one. The question is: What does one do about it? If Tenet genuinely hated what he had done, he could give his medal back and donate his book millions to charity. Until that happens, he is just another Beltway operator who failed upward to riches.

Speaking of failing upward, now we come to Tenet’s ex-colleague in the Bush administration, Paul Wolfowitz, who, more than anyone else, dreamed up the Iraq War from his Pentagon ivory tower. Having been kicked upstairs to the World Bank presidency, Wolfowitz now stands accused of finagling the intelligence once again over WMD -- Woman Much Desired.

Wolfowitz says his enemies are out to get him over what he did in Iraq, not over what he is currently doing at the World Bank. That’s for sure. And let that be a lesson to future armchair generals -- if the war you foment goes as badly as this one has, a lot of people will be upset.

So, once again, malefactors should be warned: The road to perdition is short, but the path back to forgiveness is long. And ineptly spinning the media only makes these attempted comebacks laughable, as well as futile.