Polly Dogood

A Form of Apology, offered free of Charge to any President

Wherein the Author, observing that the Strong Men of our Age cannot say Sorry, drafts the Sentence for them.

To the Readers of this Publick Blog,

My Great-great-(and so forth)-Grandpapa Franklin was a Printer, and Printers have a Word for their Mistakes. They call them Errata. When Mr. Franklin wrote the Story of his Life, he used that Word for his own Failings, one after another, and set about correcting each as a Printer corrects a Page. At twenty-two he even wrote his own Epitaph, in which he hoped to appear one Day "in a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and amended by the Author."

Nearly sixty Years later, at the close of the Constitutional Convention, the most celebrated Man in America stood before the Delegates and said this:

The older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.

That is what Strength sounds like. I bring it up because we are presently governed by Men who sound very different, and who mistake the Sound of their own Certainty for Strength.

Everyone makes Mistakes. A Mistake honestly made, by a Man whose Intentions were good, can be forgiven, and a Mistake honestly admitted is worth something: it is how a Nation learns. But Forgiveness needs Integrity on both Sides of the Error. The Man must tell the Truth about what he did, and then he must try to put it right. So, as a Service to the Republick, I have drawn up a Form. It may be copied freely by any President, Secretary or Senator who finds himself in Need of it.

I decided to do this, in order to achieve that. We fell short, and the other thing happened instead. We got it wrong. I apologize to those who were harmed by it, and we are doing everything we can to make it right.

Four Sentences. I have counted them twice.

Lest anyone think the Form impossible to sign, I can show you Men who signed it. In 1863, after Vicksburg fell, President Lincoln wrote to General Grant, whose Plan he had doubted: "I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong." In 1961, after the Bay of Pigs, President Kennedy told the Press that Victory has a hundred Fathers and Defeat is an Orphan, and that he was the responsible Officer of the Government. His Approval rose to eighty-three in a hundred. And in 1987 President Reagan told the Nation: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not." Two of those three were Republicans. The Form is not partisan. It is only difficult.

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Now for those who cannot sign it.

The War in Iran. On the 28th of February our President began a War with Iran. The Reasons given were the eliminating of imminent Threats, the destroying of Missiles and a Navy, the preventing of a Bomb, and, now and then, the toppling of a Government. As the Weeks went on a new Purpose was added: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran closed after we attacked, and which was open before we began. In late March the President assured us the War would end in "2 weeks, maybe 3." I remember a Russian Government that promised to take Kyiv in a few Days. Seven Months on, a Peace signed in June has already collapsed, the Price of Gas has passed four Dollars a Gallon, one Estimate puts the added Cost to each American Household above eight hundred Dollars, and our oldest Allies, the French among them, have declined to help, and been scolded for it. The Form, filled in, would read: I decided to go to War to make America safer. We fell short. Our Allies are estranged, our Families are poorer, and the Strait is closed. We got it wrong. It has not been signed. Instead we are told every Week that we are winning.

The Department of Homeland Security. Here I set aside my lighter Pen, for People have been shot. In January, in Minneapolis, the Department said one of its Agents fired after he was attacked with a Snow Shovel. The City's own Camera showed a Man dropping the Shovel and running for his House. The Justice Department afterward dropped the Charges against the Men accused, admitting that Prosecutors had given the Court incorrect Information. In Houston, the Department says a Man it killed tried to ram its Agents; three Witnesses say he never did, and a Houston Congresswoman says the Agency owes his Family the Truth. In each Case the first Account was a Defense, and no Correction followed it. The Form, filled in, would read: Our Agent fired. What we first told you was not true. We apologize to the Family. That Sentence would cost the Department nothing but its Pride. Refusing it costs everyone else their Trust.

And, because I promised to be fair: President Biden. When Kabul fell in 2021 he said the Buck stopped with him, and when thirteen of our Service Members were killed at the Abbey Gate, he grieved them, I believe, sincerely. That much of the Form he signed, and it is more than the others managed. But he called the Evacuation an extraordinary Success, and never once said the Withdrawal itself was done wrong. And when his Vice President was asked, three Years later, what she would have done differently, she said: "There is not a thing that comes to mind." Taking Responsibility is not the same as admitting Error. One is a Posture. The other is the Truth.

Here is why it matters, beyond Manners. A Man who cannot say he was wrong cannot say Enough. Wars go on longer than they must because no one at the Top can sign the Form; the Negotiation that would end them begins with an Admission, and the Admission never comes. Mr. McNamara, who ran the War in Vietnam, finally wrote, "We were wrong, terribly wrong." He wrote it in 1995. By then fifty-eight thousand Americans were dead. The Form, signed late, is still an Honor. Signed early, it saves Lives.

And here is why it matters for those who are not Presidents. Every Senator and Congressman who knows better, and who stands behind the Man who cannot admit he is wrong, has made the President's Weakness his own. They need no new Form. They may use mine.

For that is the Thing I most want my Readers to see. These are not strong Men. A strong Man can bear to be wrong in Publick, because his Worth does not depend on never being wrong. It is the weak Man who cannot bear it, and who will spend any Sum, and any Life, and any Ally, rather than say four Sentences. Apology is only a Weakness to the truly weak.

My Grandpapa hoped to be issued at last in a new and more perfect Edition, corrected and amended by the Author. So does the Republick. It cannot be corrected by Men who insist there is nothing to correct. On the 3rd of November, we may begin the Corrections ourselves.

P.S. Should any Reader find an Error in this Letter, write to me at polly@pollydogood.com. I shall correct it, and say so plainly, which is rather the Point.