A Contrast In Styles

Compare and contrast.

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos issued a genuine apology without any weasel words or blaming others for his mess. He's the captain of the ship - the buck stops there, and he takes personal responsibility for the screwup in the Kindle deletions. He directed his words at the very people who had most reason to be angry, the Kindle users who saw their purchases evaporate as the company deleted the books, including Animal HouseFarm [ed: sorry, I thought the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor too] and 1984 (rather apt at that).

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com

That's in comparison to what Obama has done repeatedly, and most recently with the nonsensical statements re: the Cambridge police kerfuffle with a Harvard college professor. He was busy making asinine statements without all the facts in hand, including calling the police officer's actions stupid, and then tried to walk back from the mess through his subordinates. He said he regrets the situation. Really?

Expressing regret isn't an apology. It's a weasel-worded cop-out. It's not an apology, which the Police Force now demands.

It's simple actually. President Obama should have avoided saying anything about the incident, lest he jeopardize the police investigation, the rights of the police officer, or that of the professor involved.

Instead, President Obama opined without all the facts and made a mess of things.

Now, with Bezos, you could argue that this was a belated apology, and you would be right - but the apology was unequivocal.

That's where the Bezos apology is superior to that of the many other political "apologies" we've seen in recent years - that apologize only to those who were offended, rather than to everyone for their frakking mistakes. They never take personal responsibility for their actions, and instead blame others for misinterpreting or taking things out of context, etc.

Too bad this kind of apology will be few and far between. A lot more good will comes from this than the weasel-worded variety.