Number 9

This was the Year of the Apology, or to be more precise, the Year of the Demand for the Apology. At least in that hallowed arena of integrity, the US Senate. I lost track of all the apologies and calls for apologies. Let's see if I can make a partial listing:

Mel Martinez, April 6
Rick Santorum, May 19
Mary Landrieu, George Allen, June 13
Kay Bailey Hutchison, June 17
Dick Durbin, June 21
Ted Kennedy, July 13
Kennedy and John Kerry (along with the Massachusetts congressional delegation), July 15
Harry Reid, September 29
Even St. John got into the act, October 6
Reid again, October 30

Barbara Mikulski, December 5

Looking through the news archives, there were a lot of near-apologies and calls for apologies, like Rick Santorum's call for Robert Byrd to retract his statements comparing the nuclear option to Nazism and John Edwards's recent mea culpa about voting for the war in Iraq.

The more these guys (and ladies) feign disgust and take mock offense at what goes on around them, the less their constituents really care.