Gutierrez offers Kelly an apology, and all it took was the White House chief of staff implying Donald Trump, misspoke

I always take apologies by government officials half-seriously.

GUTIERREZ: A 'lo siento' from 'el Gallito'

They’re usually less-than-sincere, and more motivated by some official’s desire that the public stop talking about something perceived as a gaffe.

RARELY ARE THE officials actually regretful that they said something stupid. They just wish everybody else would agree with them instead of the other guy.

So when I learned that soon-to-be retiring Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., was apologetic Wednesday toward White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, I was skeptical.

Gutierrez, who has used his decades of time in Congress to try to make himself the Voice of Latinos across the nation rather than just in his Latino-enclave district in Chicago, has been critical of Kelly for saying he opposes the demise of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program.

The program is meant to make it possible for young people who came to this country without a valid visa to exist openly in this country. It is a part of the Barack Obama presidential legacy that Donald Trump is most anxious to abolish.

GUTIERREZ HAS SAID that Kelly, a former Marine Corps general, is “a hypocrite,” “mean” and “a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear.”

Ouch!

But on Wednesday, when Kelly met with several members of Congress to discuss the future of DACA and immigration reform, the Chicago politico who has been outspoken since his days as an alderman made a point of publicly apologizing for his past rhetoric.

KELLY: Accepted the apology

The Washington Post reported that Kelly accepted the apology, telling everybody “we all say or do stupid things.” But then later told Gutierrez that the public apology “means a lot.”

NOW MAYBE GUTIERREZ wants to create the impression of being the bigger man in the ongoing immigration debate.

But one also has to consider that at that same meeting with congressmen, many of whom were members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Kelly tried to give the impression that all of his boss, Donald Trump’s, talk about demanding a barrier be erected along the U.S./Mexico border before any talk of immigration reform or DACA preservation could proceed was, to put it simply, cheap.

Now one can argue the cliché “talk is cheap” applies to all government officials.

But Kelly let it be known that, deep down, Trump knows that a border wall along the 1,900-mile stretch of desert separating the two nations is impractical. He even told them they shouldn’t take it too seriously when Trump says he’s going to force Mexico’s government to pay for the barricade that Trump insists will cut off the flow of people headed northbound into the U.S.

TRUMP, OF COURSE, continues to insist he really means it when he makes such threats. In recent days, he has insisted that DACA will die, no matter how much it will hurt young people who have established their lives in this country. And it’s all the Democrats’ fault because they won’t go along with his wall talk.

Kelly, however, said that Trump’s hostile talk during his 2016 presidential campaign was that of an “uninformed” candidate, and that he is learning about the ways of government. It’s that old argument we shouldn’t take Trump too seriously. Which sounds much like the old line about Mayor Richard J. Daley’s inarticulate manner of speaking when they said, “write what (Daley) means, not what he says.”

TRUMP: Who knows what he really means!

Perhaps such talk from Kelly did put Gutierrez in the proper frame of mind to want to say “I’m sorry” to someone who had in the past spoken out against the interests of the people whom Gutierrez sees as his larger constituency.

Or maybe he was just wanting to make sure Kelly didn’t wind up using him as an excuse to later come back and shoot down some immigration deal, just because Gutierrez once felt the need to be critical. Then again, anybody familiar with Chicago politics throughout the years would know Luis didn’t get the nickname of El Gallito (the little rooster) by being meek as a mouse!

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Trump-types certainly don’t want to hear the “truth” during campaign cycle

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is being demonized these days for comments she made about the quality of people who are inclined to oppose her campaign and support opponent Donald Trump.
 

Does Hillary really owe an apology?

A “basket of deplorables” is how Hillary referred to the individuals who would actually be willing to vote for The Donald. As she told a Manhattan-based crowd, Trump’s backers are, “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”

WHICH WHEN YOU think about it isn’t that far from the truth. The real story behind the 2016 electoral cycle is that this is a time when the segment of our society determined to believe we as a people are becoming degenerate with our openness is trying to assert itself.

It is a time when people who have certain hostile views toward people who aren’t just like themselves want to pick a president they believe will support their nativist ideals. Which for now is Trump.

In a sense, Clinton merely told the truth about what this electoral cycle has devolved to. Only she asserted these traits as somehow being negative. Whereas these people want to think their hostility is a plus!

As though the fact they don’t think much of gay people, black people, foreigners or Arabs in general is what makes them special. Then again, they’re the ones always complaining about the world being too “politically correct,” as though they want to think their nastiness is something they should be praised for.

AS THOUGH THEY want to believe their negativity and ignorance is somehow a more honest view of the world. Actually, true honesty is calling out the people who want their hatred of certain aspects of our society for the buffoons they are.

 

Fat chance Trump will apologize to anyone

So I can’t get too worked up at the people who are now denouncing Hillary’s presidential bid; trying to claim she has delved to a new low in negativity.

Trump himself is leading this charge, what with his use of Twitter to say Hillary, “was SO INSULTING to my supporters” and added “I think it will cost her at the polls.”

Of course, the entire tone of the Trump presidential campaign has been one of negativity to so many types of people. Clinton’s outburst of Friday doesn’t even come close to the trash talk spewed by The Donald!

 

How many apologies is Obama owed?

BUT THE TRUMP types are of the belief that the people they’re bashing about deserve to be looked down upon because they naturally are entitled (in their own mini-minds) to a higher place in our society.

Actually, the great injustice of our society is that such people were ever given the notion to begin with that they were better than anybody else.

Sure, Hillary Clinton was blunt-spoken when she made her public assessment of whom she is being challenged by. Then again, we can also argue that all she did was tell the truth.

I can almost hear actor Jack Nicholson screaming out “You Can’t Handle the Truth!” like he did in that film, “A Few Good Men.” It’s all nonsense.

IT’S ALL SO hypocritical if you view it objectively. Then again, objectivity is one of the last things that comes up during a campaign cycle – particularly one as hostile as this year’s has become.

 

Will Jack Nicholson have part in Hillary/Trump film?

Let’s not forget the 2008 election cycle when then-candidate Barack Obama came about critical about his opposition when he said, “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

One could say Obama was just addressing a certain truth of our society – one that certain people didn’t want to have called out about themselves. And as it is, Obama talked that statement back a bit back then, as Clinton this weekend said she regretted her own remark.

Which may be the ultimate evidence of how much more presidential she is than Trump – who you just know would have responded to anyone saying he owed an apology to anyone for any of his own stupid remarks with a line something like, “Stuff it!!!”

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EDITOR’S NOTE: What’s with Donald Trump’s obsession with the idea of political people being able to shoot somebody and avoid prosecution? Let’s not forget that earlier this year Trump cited it as some sort of plus about himself that he could get away with such an act without losing his political supporters. That alone makes me think the man is unfit for government office of any type.

When is an apology worth squat?

I always thought the only “apology” worth anything was the one comedian Steve Martin gave all those decades ago.

MARTIN: From the past

Remember back in the days of the arrow through the head and the banjo riffs when he’d build himself up into a frenzy of alleged gaffes, then wind them up with the over-the-top, “Well, Excuuuuuuuuse Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

IT WAS SO insincere. It meant nothing. It was just a formality meant to shut people up, and Martin mocked the very idea that an apology was necessary, or that it meant anything.

Anyway, all this speculation over the sincerity of an apology has popped into my mind on account of the fact that Mayor Rahm Emanuel – in theory – has apologized for the death of Laquan McDonald.

He conceded that since all this mishap has occurred with the police under a superintendent he picked and during his time in office, he has to take the blame.

As Emanuel put it, “If we’re going to fix it, you have to understand it’s my responsibility with you. But if we’re also going to begin the healing process, the first step in that journey is my step, and I’m sorry.”

TO PARROTT MARTIN, “Well Excuuuuuuuuse Meeeeeeeeeeeee!” for thinking that Emanuel is less than sincere, or that there’s anything he could possibly say that would appease anyone who isn’t already looking for any excuse to forgive him.

The reality is that the people who are most concerned about the issue of police misconduct in modern-day Chicago are looking for someone to blame. They are less interested at this point in time in trying to find a solution so much as they want someone’s face to post on the problem.

For many, particularly those who wanted Anybody But Emanuel back in the February and April elections earlier this year, they’re more than willing to put the blame on Rahm.

EMANUEL: Is he about as sincere ...

They want him to go. They’re not interested in him being a part of the solution. If anything, they would have found a problem to blame him for no matter what had happened. The death of McDonald was just a convenient occurrence for them.

MY POINT IS that I don’t think there’s such a thing as an apology in a case like this. We have to acknowledge the cause of a problem then figure out how to fix it.

But the idea that someone’s “I’m sorry” really means anything just doesn’t wash. If anything, it always comes across as sounding like someone means to say “I’m sorry I got caught!”

So if by having Emanuel make his little speech Wednesday morning it means that city officials are willing to work together to try to resolve our societal differences that are truly at the heart of this particular problem, then perhaps it meant something.

... as the Hamburger Dude?

Otherwise, it was wasted words that ought to best be forgotten by Friday – if not sooner!

THE REAL PROBLEM we face here is one that goes back much farther than Emanuel as mayor. Or either Daley. It is something that isn’t even limited to Chicago, no matter how many politically partisan outsiders are now wishing they could say it is.

I’m wondering how long it will be before someone tries to claim that the outrage felt toward police because of the death of McDonald and certain other young black men is nothing but political correctness run amok. I have no doubt that some people really feel those 16 shots fired at Laquan were somehow justified.

So long as we have those attitudes amongst us, we will have this problem – no matter whether or not political partisans are able to concoct a way to pressure Emanuel out of the mayor’s office against his will.

Which makes me think we’ll someday hear something the equivalent of the Hamburger Dude, the character played by Paul Reubens in a Cheech and Chong film when he apologized for trying to steal $5 million – only to screech out “I’m not sorry” when he thought nobody was looking.

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How much of today’s political rhetoric will someday be apologized for as silly?

It will be 150 years this week since Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address – his brief speech at the battlefield-turned-cemetery that helped to put the Civil War into a high, moral context – rather than just a bloodbath.

Significance not immediately realized

Yet there were those who disparaged Lincoln during his lifetime. He truly was a person who could never have comprehended the glory with which his image is now draped, based on anything that happened during his lifetime.

EARLIER THIS MONTH, the Harrisburg Patriot-News newspaper in Pennsylvania went so far as to apologize for what its predecessor (the Patriot & Union newspaper) wrote about the speech when it occurred.

The Patriot-News “regrets the error” that the Patriot & Union wrote that Lincoln made “silly remarks” that were motivated by partisan politics.

“Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time,” were mistaken in their coverage, the 21^st Century take of the Harrisburg-based newspaper wrote.

Now I’m not about to say whether or not a reporter-type of the past was intoxicated (anything’s possible). Nor am I going to rant about how this correction was self-serving and did nothing more than to get a local paper some national attention.

Reason for recent presidential criticism

BUT WHEN I learned of this editorial, it couldn’t help but make me think of our modern-day situation. One in which our current president gets all the abuse the ideologues think he is worthy of, and where anyone who doesn’t share in their rancid rhetoric gets decried as somehow being “un-American.”

And with the fact that the Affordable Care Act’s implementation isn’t going smoothly, there are those who are willing to pile on to the president as well.

It should not be any surprise that the president’s approval rating isn’t all that high these days (40 percent approval rating, according to the Gallup Organization, with 53 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance).

There’s also a recent Gallup poll that says only 28 percent of people questioned think Obama will be remembered as an “outstanding” or “above average” president, with 31 percent saying he’ll be “average” and 40 percent saying he’ll be remembered as “below average/poor.” That's far from the worst -- both Presidents Bush are thought of less-highly, as are former presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon.

An impression from JFK's own time

THAT STUDY FOUND that John F. Kennedy (who this week will have been deceased for 50 years – too many morbid “anniversaries” in coming days) is regarded the most-highly in history amongst recent presidents.

Although I can recall many studies throughout the years that show Kennedy’s legacy approval rating, so to speak, bouncing up-and-down depending on the circumstances.

My point being that these things are flexible. They’re alterable. Nothing is carved in stone.

I wonder what it will be like when much of the rhetoric we hear and read about Obama these days will sound ridiculously dated, or just ridiculous.

WE PROBABLY SHOULD remember that much of the trash-talk Lincoln faced was just as over-the-top as what Obama gets these days – particularly from the ranks of trash-talk radio that seeks to make money by appealing to their Tea Party-type listeners.

Apology owed, although not likely to ever come

It has been eight years since I visited the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., and my most vivid memory was of the exhibit devoted to the nasty rhetoric. Literally getting to read the libelous stories and commentary and hearing some of the slurs read aloud.

There are a lot more publications than the Patriot-News that probably owe Lincoln’s legacy an apology. How many publications are going to have their future incarnations issuing apologies to Obama (probably long after he’s departed this Earth) for the things they wrote, or allowed to be said without challenging them?

Will they be able to get away with just an apology – that will come across as self-serving in the future as the one Lincoln got earlier this month?

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Emanuel offers a rare apology

Call it one of the rules of thumb of government – when they get sued, they inevitably will offer to settle the legal action rather than have to fight in court.

EMANUEL: Chicago's sorry

It’s not that government doesn’t think much of its actions. It’s more that they want to save money, and they often figure that throwing some cash at someone as a settlement is cheaper than a court fight.

IN FACT, I have heard it specified by some governments that once the cost of legal fees potentially becomes larger than the cost of a settlement, then the law suit must be settled.

Part of what lets government get away with this attitude is the fact that the settlement agreement often includes provisions that prohibit the person receiving a settlement from discussing the issue in the future.

In many cases, they have to wind up signing a statement that specifically says that the government entity did not commit any inappropriate act. It probably did, but the people who file the lawsuits and who suffered the harm in the first place often are so emotionally whipped and eager enough for the final compensation that they let government “off the hook” (so to speak) by allowing them to go blameless in the official record of events.

This very attitude is why I am still shocked (some several hours after the City Council met Wednesday) at the actions of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

THE ALDERMEN GAVE their approval to a $12.3 million payment to settle two lawsuits against the city because of the actions of one-time Pullman Area Violent Crimes Commander Jon Burge.

He’s the guy who back in the 1980s had his detectives running roughshod on the rights of people he wanted to believe were criminal suspects. Tactics often amounted to torture to get confessions that wound up sending people to prison for many years – until serious studies of the evidence caused the cases to crack.

It’s not a shock that the city is settling the case. It seems every government entity these days is eager to pay what they have to in order to make the Burge era go away.

Will Burge ever be sorry?

What is astounding about all of this was that Emanuel on Wednesday felt compelled to offer an apology! An actual admission from the “Man on Five” that the city screwed up.

OF COURSE, EMANUEL himself has nothing to lose – since this all happened before he was at all relevant to the political scene in Chicago. This is a case that smears the legacy of Richard M. Daley; since he was the state’s attorney whose staff actually used the tainted evidence to gain convictions – AND also disregarded the speculation years ago that the cops were abusing people.

As Emanuel put it, “This is a dark chapter on the history of the city of Chicago. I want to build a future for the city of Chicago. I don’t want to just deal with the past.

“But we have to close the books on this. We have to reconcile our past and start to write a future and a new chapter for the children of the city of Chicago and for the city,” Emanuel told reporter-types present for the council session.

That goes way farther than most government officials would even dream of going in terms of dealing with ugly incidents in their past behavior.

IT IS SO out of character, particularly since there are those people in our past who like to deny that organized crime elements ever played a part in our city’s history – while others like to dress them up in comic book-like colors to make the bloodshed of the past seem like an essential part of Chicago’s character.

But an apology is an apology. Wednesday is a rare day for the city.

Because I doubt that Emanuel will be willing to offer up mea culpas for many other issues, no matter how wrong the city might be.

There’s only so much muck a man will be willing to eat!

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Sorry. But will public buy Jr.’s apology?

“Tell everybody back home, I’m sorry I let them down, okay?”

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JACKSON: Accepting his apology?

Those were the words of wisdom uttered Wednesday by Jesse Jackson, Jr., following his court appearance in the District of Columbia at which he formally entered a “guilty” plea to the criminal charges based off the fact that he spent significant amounts of his campaign contributions on celebrity memorabilia for himself.

Which must be a disappointment for those ideologues who for months, if not years, have been ranting that “Junior” is on his way to prison for trying to “buy” himself a seat in the U.S. Senate, or a series of political deals they desperately want to view as corrupt because they don’t comply with their own ideological hang-ups.

INSTEAD, JACKSON FACES the possibility of about five years in a federal correctional center of some sort (probably a minimum-security work camp) because he absolutely needed to have a fedora once worn by singer Michael Jackson.

Too bad the Congressman couldn’t have used his campaign cash to buy that famed white glove – that would have been too perfect!

The court appearance Wednesday morning (wife Sandi had her own court appearance in the afternoon) was unique because few of us have seen the now-former Congressman in public anywhere.

Personally, the last time I encountered him was back in May (or was it late April?) when he made an appearance in suburban South Holland to talk up the concept of a new airport in rural Will County – a project that many other political officials may steer away from just because it is so associated with Jackson’s name.

IT IS THE airport tentatively given the International Air Transport Association code of “JJK” (to go along with “ORD” for O’Hare International and “MDW” for Midway airports). How quickly will those officials now try to erase any evidence that they ever considered making the likely Chicago Southland International Airport a tribute to Jesse, Jr.?

Perhaps it is with that thought of self-preservation in mind that Jackson himself felt compelled to issue the apology. Because most officials in those moments just after having to enter the “guilty” plea (which forecloses any attempt to defend themselves legally) don’t worry about such concerns.

Or else they try to come up with some line that, in their minds, diminishes their guilt.

Instead, Jackson wants us to not hate him for his actions; which technically, if handled in a different manner, could have been construed as legal – if not still a tacky waste of cash that could have gone to something more worthwhile.

THAT IS WHAT makes this whole Jackson affair so laughable!

We were supposed to think that Jackson was conniving with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to get himself appointed to a U.S. Senate seat – even though the reality was that Blagojevich himself was petty enough that he NEVER would have given Jackson such an influential post.

Despite the fact that Jackson probably would have been the best qualified of all the people in serious running for the post. The fact that Roland Burris ultimately got the appointment was more a “drop dead” gesture from Blagojevich to people who had a problem with the governor himself being enriched in any way.

I suspect that the people who wanted to believe the worst are going to continue to still do so. They are the ones who I suspect are going to refuse to accept anything in the way of apology.

HECK, THEY’RE THE ones who already are on the Internet ranting and raging that Jackson wasn’t immediately sent to prison (he’s scheduled for sentencing in June).

RYAN: Replaced by Jackson for public contempt?

It has me thinking that the people who for years have let their venom build up against former Gov. George Ryan will now transfer their hate to Jackson – he’ll be the guy whom they make tacky jokes about and will probably wish has something horrible happen to him during his incarceration.

Personally, I can’t comprehend such hate. The fact that Jackson felt the need to own items that once belonged to martial arts expert Bruce Lee is more laughable than criminal.

So as far as I’m concerned, accepting Jackson’s “apology” ought to be a no-brainer. Rather than linger in a pool of political bile, it allows all of us to get on with our lives.

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