The Growth of a Child (Learning Responsibility)

8 year-old: "If there were mistakes, I'm sorry"

12 year-old: "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me"

adult: "I made a mistake. I'm sorry. It was this."

Froomkin continues:

That's a step. But the restoration of Bush's credibility on Iraq requires that he admit that he himself made mistakes, and explain what he's learned from them.

Instead, what he was saying last night was, basically: People who worked for me screwed up, and I'm jumping on the grenade. That sort of "admission" casts himself as heroic, rather than repentant.

There was no acknowledgment that he himself had ever done anything wrong. There was no contrition, no remorse, no apology, no sense that he had learned anything from the experience, no reason to hope that he'll make better decisions next time around.