Presidential Apologies

Few were surprised when Barack Obama apologized for backing his mentor, Tom Daschle, for the job of health and human services secretary despite the former Senate Democratic leader's failure to pay taxes. What was surprising, though, was the blunt and unstuffy way in which he held up his hands.

After Daschle became the third of Obama's appointees to have tax problems - he was reported to be more than $140,000 (£97,000) in arrears and penalties last month for failing to report his use of a company limousine - the new US president decided to face accusations of hypocrisy head-on.

"I'm here on television saying I screwed up, and that's part of the era of responsibility," he told NBC.

The vernacular phrase may have been surrounded by more familiar constructions and apologies - "I've got to own up to my mistake, which is that ultimately it's important for this administration to send a message that there aren't two sets of rules, you know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes" - but his choice of words was striking.

When Richard Nixon resigned the presidency after the Watergate scandal in August 1974, he was characteristically evasive and formal in his apology. "I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision," Nixon said. "If some of my judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the nation."

The last Democrat to occupy the White House before Obama also had his mea culpa moment, but his choice of vocabulary was more biblical than bar-room. "I don't think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned," said Bill Clinton in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky affair, before going on to beg forgiveness from "my family, also my friends, my staff, my cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family and the American people".

American presidents, however, have not always apologized: George Washington may have confessed to chopping down the cherry tree because he could not tell a lie, but he never said sorry for his act.