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Saying "I'm sorry" fails to soothe public anger

By Tabassum Zakaria Thu May 3 2007, 4:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Even saying he's sorry isn't working for U.S.

President George W. Bush these days.

Bush has used the words "mistakes," "apologize" and "responsibility" in trying

to calm public anger over the

Iraq war, substandard care of wounded veterans and the botched response to

Hurricane Katrina.

Still his approval rating hovers around 35 percent in opinion polls, just above

the lows of his two-term presidency.

Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow on public opinion at the conservative American

Enterprise Institute, said people were fairly cynical due to the unpopular Iraq

war and not paying much attention to Bush or his top officials.

"The judgment on his presidency is a negative one and explanations or apologies

are unlikely to change that," Bowman said. "It's one of the sourest moods I've

seen in a long time and it washes over everything."

High-profile apologies have worked in the past.

One of the most famous examples came from Bush's predecessor, President

Bill Clinton, when he admitted to a relationship with White House intern Monica

Lewinsky.

"I misled people, including even my wife. I deeply regret that," Clinton said

in a televised address in 1998.

Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) in the late 1980s was one of five

senators accused of intervening with federal savings and loan regulators on

behalf of a big campaign donor.

McCain apologized, was reelected and made campaign finance reform a key issue.

The Arizona Republican is now running for president in the 2008 election.

DEEDS, NOT WORDS

These days, saying sorry isn't working in official Washington, where Attorney

General Alberto Gonzales and

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz are fighting to keep their jobs. Each has

offered a public apology, with little reward.

Political analysts say the people want action.

"The public responds to events. Taking responsibility is very nice, but does it

end the war or win the war faster because he says 'I take responsibility'?"

said Stephen Hess, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington

University in Washington.

For example, when Bush unveiled a new Iraq strategy in January to send 21,500

extra troops nearly four years after the invasion, he acknowledged a mistake in

not deploying more forces sooner.

"The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is

unacceptable to me," Bush said in a televised White House address. "Where

mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

He sounded a similar note about six weeks after The Washington Post reported

shabby treatment of wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Bush went to the hospital and said: "I apologize for what they went through,

and we're going to fix the problem."

Bush was sharply criticized for first backing the head of the federal emergency

response to Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster to hit the United

States, before taking responsibility two weeks later to counter public outrage.

Katrina devastated the Gulf region in August 2005 and resulted in some 1,300

deaths.

Gonzales was criticized for mishandling the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last

year and came under harsh criticism from U.S. lawmakers last month when he said

nothing improper occurred but that "my misstatements were my mistakes."

Wolfowitz, embroiled in a scandal over a pay hike for his companion, had this

to say: "I made a mistake, for which I am sorry." His tenure at the World Bank

remains tenuous.