How to Make an Apology: A Lesson from Aristotle to Mitt Romney
Publisher
Charlottesville Daily Progress
Date
2012-5-20
We all need to fess up on occasion. It’s important to do it well. The great architects of classical rhetoric are wincing: Mitt got it all backward.
Last week the Washington Post reported that presidential candidate Mitt Romney bullied a classmate in high school, leading a pack of students who held the boy down and cut off his blonde hair as the boy cried.
Romney issued two responses to the story; first, a denial via his spokesperson Andrea Saul, who said, “The stories of 50 years ago seem exaggerated and off-base, and Gov. Romney has no memory of participating in these incidents,” and second, in an interview on Fox Radio, in which he apologized for his behavior. Sort of.
Citation
Molly Bishop Shadel, How to Make an Apology: A Lesson from Aristotle to Mitt Romney, Charlottesville Daily Progress (May 20, 2012).