Roger Maris Apologies

As in, "I'm sorry."*

* Pro-forma apology offered without admission of any guilt or wrongdoing and wholly free of negative consequences.

Accepting Responsibility, With an Asterisk

President Bush in 2000 ushered in the Era of Personal Responsibility. Yesterday ushered in the Era of Qualified Personal Responsibility.

In hours-long testimony before a Senate committee, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he took the blame for the department's failures responding to Hurricane Katrina. "I am responsible for the Department of Homeland Security," came the inevitable claim. "I'm accountable and accept responsibility for the performance of the entire department."

At the same time, Vice President Cheney, breaking four days of silence since accidentally shooting a man on Saturday, was scheduling a confessional on Fox News. "You can't blame anybody else," Cheney told Brit Hume. "I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend."

But, try though they might, neither Chertoff nor Cheney could come up with much in the way of what he had done wrong.

"Yes, I was the one who drove that car off the bridge at Chappaquiddick; no one else but me was behind the wheel. But if that damned Mary Jo hadn't been in the car, none of this would have happened," said president-elect Ted Kennedy.

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