This is worth going over, just because the Legacy Media and John McCain seem confused on the matter: Why did Dick Durbin apologize? Because he’s a great guy? Because he had a change of heart? Because he is always looking to promote harmony and bi-partisanship?

Nnnnno. Because it was good politics to apologize.

Wall St. Journal’s OpinionJournal Best of the Web quotes a Rasmussan poll out June 22:

Only 20% of the 1,000 likely voters in the survey “believe prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been treated unfairly.” Thirty-four percent think the treatment of the prisoners is “about right,” and 36% think America is treating them “better than they deserve”:

“The survey also found that just 14% agree with people who say that prisoner treatment at Guantanamo Bay is similar to Nazi tactics. Sixty-nine percent disagree with that comparison. This helps explain why Illinois Senator Dick Durbin apologized for making such a comparison. “

Even among Democrats, only 30% think the Guantanamo prisoners are being treated unfairly. In other words, many Democratic elected officials are out of touch not only with Americans in general but with a majority of their own supporters.

In other words, virtually nobody agreed with what he said. So he took it back.

Except of course he didn’t. Durbin first apologized to Holocaust survivors — who by the way do not constitute 69% of the country — and then said that IF anyone took offense by what he said or thought that there was a slight to our military implied, he was hereby apologizing to those people.

I’m sorry but that’s not an apology. It’s just pure common sense. Suppose your 10-year-old son had said his little brother smelled like a wet poodle, and you told him to apologize. Suppose he then spent one hour pretending like he didn’t hear you, one hour telling you that you must’ve heard other people saying that he said it, and one hour telling you that those imaginary people were being stupid and mean. If he then struck a pose on the kitchen floor and said, “If you thought that my words meant anything bad, then … y’know … sorry. And by the way, I LIKE poodles,” would you EVER consider that an apology? An apology begins with “I am” and ends with “sorry.” If it contains disclaimers and conditions, it’s not an apology, it’s a justification. Hoo boy. I think there are many Democrats who sincerely hope that there aren’t many good parents out there.

For a better bit of analysis, though, here’s more from that same OpinionJournal article:

What are we to make of all this? The most hopeful interpretation is that the Democrats are politically incompetent — that they are stupidly trying to whip up hysteria over Guantanamo in hope of scoring political points. The other possibility is that one of America’s two major political parties is led by people who are genuinely passionate about the “rights” of terrorists and correspondingly blasé about the dangers of terrorism.

In light of all this, Durbin’s politically expedient “apology” — even if unsatisfactory as an apology — is a good sign. It suggests that Democrats are playing politics and coming to realize it isn’t working.

Here’s hopin’.