I’ve written a couple of times recently about how hard it seems to be for people in the public eye to say “I’m sorry” (it isn’t restricted to them, obviously, it just stands out more).
Louis C.K. released a statement today that I really want to like (the statement, not Louis C.K.), but can’t quite get there. The most obvious thing is that he never actually says he’s sorry — neither “sorry” nor “apologize” appear in the statement. The second thing is that he can’t resist putting in a justification, saying he asked the women if it was OK if he exposed himself before he did so. (Yes, that’s as ridiculous as it sounds, which is why it shouldn’t have been in the statement.) It also comes on the heels of his saying last year that it was all “just rumors,” so this is driven more by being caught than being sorry.
But it’s still a durn sight better than any of the other predators that have been in the news lately have done, (including and going back to the “locker-room” talking Predator in Chief). He at least says, “I did it” and “I know it was wrong.”
Contrast that to the statement from Roy Moore’s campaign. It attacks the messenger, it attacks the women, albeit indirectly (“it certainly would have come out before now!”, as if the truth has an expiration date), it feels the need to remind us of his entire political career, and, most ominously, it doesn’t actually deny anything (calling it “fake news” is not a denial). For further examples of this kind of statement, see anything Lance Armstrong ever said.
I don’t know whether he’s guilty or not, but I know which way I’d bet. (Either way, it won’t change the fact that that was an awful statement.)