Mistakes were made

My ass, mistakes were made. No one skirted political culpability better than the Great Communicator, the Teflon President, the Gipper, Ronald Reagan. He knew perfectly well most people would hear the phrase in passive and think he’d taken responsibility – without actually taking blame for it. Not “I made mistakes,” but rather “mistakes were made.”

Didn’t Bill Clinton try to pull off the same nonsense at some point? Nope, he’d lied outright and said, “I did not have sex with that woman.” He’d have been better, had he said, “sex was not done upon that woman.” Both men manipulated words and public opinion constantly – but that depends on the definition of “words.”

I remember those evenings when Reagan and Clinton made their confessions – mistakes were made, I had an inappropriate relationship. I was still living at home when Reagan made his “confession,” and I was visiting with Clinton made his.

“Well, that’s the end of that,” my father said of Reagan. “All a tempest in a teapot.”

“The tip of the iceberg, Dad,” I replied. No one liked stupid clichés better than my parents. They were still full of them when Clinton confessed to cigar hanky panky with Monica Lewinsky.

“Once a cheater, always a cheater,” Mom said. “Never liked Clinton.”

Of course, I reminded her we’d always known he fooled around on Hillary, but that he’d restored prosperity, balanced the budget, kept us out of war.

“You don’t know what it’s like, paying all the taxes we have to pay. Go to your room, Jimmy.”

I’d be forty in just a few years, and she still called me Jimmy. I’d asked her for years to call me Jim, but she still did that. I guess mistakes were made.