Knowing when to apologize
One thing I greatly admired Barack Obama for during his campaign was his adamant refusal to apologize for things he hadn't said.
The Republican campaign, in standard Republican form, would come up with some strained deliberate misinterpretation of something he had said, and claim that their wild spin on it was what he'd meant. Perhaps the most memorable was when he compared John McCain's policies to "putting lipstick on a pig"; the McCain/Palin campaign tried to draw some nonexistent connection to Sarah Palin's line about a hockey mom being "a pitbull in lipstick", and were immediately up in arms: "Oh horrors, Obama just called Sarah Palin a pig!"
He had done nothing of the sort, of course, and he did not apologize for saying something he had not said. It would have been easy to issue a vaguely-worded apology there, on the order of, "I didn't mean to be offensive, and if anyone was offended I'm sorry". But he didn't, because he hadn't said anything to apologize for, and he wasn't about to apologize for what the Republicans said he'd said, or what they said he "really meant".
I admired him then, for refusing to apologize for things he hadn't said. And now I admire him more, for his willingness to acknowledge when he has said something stupid, and to apologize for it.
The Republican campaign, in standard Republican form, would come up with some strained deliberate misinterpretation of something he had said, and claim that their wild spin on it was what he'd meant. Perhaps the most memorable was when he compared John McCain's policies to "putting lipstick on a pig"; the McCain/Palin campaign tried to draw some nonexistent connection to Sarah Palin's line about a hockey mom being "a pitbull in lipstick", and were immediately up in arms: "Oh horrors, Obama just called Sarah Palin a pig!"
He had done nothing of the sort, of course, and he did not apologize for saying something he had not said. It would have been easy to issue a vaguely-worded apology there, on the order of, "I didn't mean to be offensive, and if anyone was offended I'm sorry". But he didn't, because he hadn't said anything to apologize for, and he wasn't about to apologize for what the Republicans said he'd said, or what they said he "really meant".
I admired him then, for refusing to apologize for things he hadn't said. And now I admire him more, for his willingness to acknowledge when he has said something stupid, and to apologize for it.