Politicians Admitting Mistakes

Only one, Michael: Anwar Sadat's admission that it was wrong of Egypt (and the rest of the Muslim Middle East) to make war on Israel. You might recall that he was assassinated for that admission.

I believe that it would be received as a breath of fresh air, actually. I would love to see it happen. I know that when I admit my mistakes to customers, it cools them off and makes them more patient with my repairs.

I'm not sure how to evaluate the phrase "forgiven or castigated". Castigated, unless I'm mistaken, means to criticize harshly. So you're asking for examples of politicians admitting mistakes, only to be either forgiven or criticized harshly? That sounds like you're asking for... examples of politicians admitting mistakes. Which, granted, might still be a very small number, but somehow I don't think that's what you meant.

Assuming by "castigated" you mean something closer in meaning to "forgiven" (as in, "_merely_ criticized verbally, without significant consequences beyond that", maybe), I'd mention Reagan's admission of failure to avoid allowing the Iran-Contra events to turn into an "arms for hostages" negotiation. He seems to have pretty well weathered that admission. And of course, we have the example of Clinton's having admitted post-blue-dress to having in fact had something bearing at least a passing resemblance to sexual relations with "that woman, Miss Lewinsky." True, a lot of people are still annoyed about that, but probably no more than were still annoyed with Reagan over his own lapses of truth at a similar point post-presidency.

There really are some amazing similarities in the stories of the public's views of Reagan and Clinton. Take a look at the two guys' Gallup approval ratings during their time in office:

(Oh, rats. Pollkatz has taken those graphs down, "at the request of the Gallup Organization." You can still see a smaller version of it on my site, at:

http://www.lies.com/gif/five_poll.gif

Clinton's approval ratings are the light blue circles; Reagan's are the slightly-lighter yellow squares (not the slightly darker yellow squares that end up at the bottom with Carter's dark blue circles; those are Bush I).

Who knows; in a few decades you might have the interesting experience of seeing a national outpouring of grief and admiration over the passing of Bill Clinton.

JC: No, I meant what I wrote. I'm just curious as to the reactions whenever politicians have admitted mistakes.