No, not Robert E.

Brenda.

Just over 45 years ago, Brenda Lee came out with what turned rapidly into a hit single - for those many who were not around at the time, that's what we called a flat, black, plastic disc (or "wax", which makes no sense at all unless you know more about this than you need to, and in that case I'm not going to burden other people with it here) rotating at 45 revolutions-per-minute and putting out sound through a needle placed carefully in its concentric grooves - entitled "I'm Sorry".

It was used by many of us in the context of many relationships with members of the opposite sex - not then usually called gender, but hey, it was the only way we could say "sex" without blushing - in the hope that it would help us get back onto the playing field, maybe even past first base.

As we used to say.

Anyway, the United States Senate, in full flight from the twenty-first century, has just voted, according to this account by Don Surber:

Je m'excuse.

I'm told that John Kerry, who sort of mastered French when he spent several years in school in Switzerland (where they speak French, or Italian, or English, or German, or all of same) but who could only manage a C+ in French at Yale, was asked to translate, for those of his colleagues who decided, years ago, that learning to speak Spanish would be more productive for them, politically.

Who were, of course, right about that.

Don't tell The Ace about it, though;

He'll be up all night.

Update:

The Captain has more to add to this sorry story of political pandering and charade of faux regret.

And the Guru offers some synonyms and other helpful material:

SYNONYMS: regret, sorrow, grief, anguish, woe, heartache, heartbreak. These nouns denote mental distress. Regret has the broadest range, from mere disappointment to a painful sense of dissatisfaction or self-reproach, as over something lost or done: She looked back with regret on the pain she had caused her family. Sorrow connotes sadness caused by misfortune, affliction, or loss; it can also imply contrition: "sorrow for his … children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect" (James Baldwin). Grief is deep, acute personal sorrow, as that arising from irreplaceable loss: "Grief fills the room up of my absent child,/Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me" (Shakespeare). Anguish implies agonizing, excruciating mental pain: "I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement" (Abraham Lincoln). Woe is intense, often prolonged wretchedness or misery: "the deep, unutterable woe/Which none save exiles feel" (W.E. Aytoun). Heartache most often applies to sustained private sorrow: The child's difficulties are a source of heartache to the parents. Heartbreak is overwhelming grief: "Better a little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak" (Shakespeare).

The Shakespeare references are great, but I particularly liked the Lincoln and Baldwin touches, given the subject matter.

Anything from Byrd?

Yet?

Further Update:

No, still nothing from Byrd, but La Shawn Barber has been stropping the razor:

Perhaps Congress should apologize for decades of bloated socialist programs that caused the black family to disintegrate. Paying unmarried women to have babies is obscene, immoral, and the reason so many (too many) black children have no fathers to speak of. Treating blacks like dummies who require separate (LOWER) standards than every other race is offensive. I’m offended. Where is my apology?

Generations of blacks have been lulled into feeding from the government trough, and the damage it caused will reverberate for generations. And those numbskulls down the street are apologizing for failing to pass anti-lynching laws 100 years ago. Lord, give me strength.

I'm sick of politicians wasting time and money pandering to blacks, treating us like empty-headed children, spoon-feeding us putrid pabulum, and prostrating themselves for every perceived slight. Don't apologize to "Black People." Apologize to individual blacks who actually care about this mess.

Apologize for failing to protect Americans against foreign invaders. Apologize for taking our hard-earned money and giving it to people who don't want to earn it themselves. Apologize for constantly referring to me as "African American," implying that I'm a lesser American than everyone else. Apologize to all Americans for pushing racially divisive entitlements and preferences and insane "hate crime" laws.

She'll be waiting for those apologies for quite awhile, I'm afraid.

Maybe in the next century . . . .

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