Biden Waffles on Apology

A final (I hope) footnote to Joe Biden’s disgraceful SOTU performance: he referred to Jose Ibarra as an illegal, which was, as I said here, perhaps the only true statement in the entire speech. But Biden met with blowback from Democrats who don’t seem to mind that Ibarra is an (alleged) murderer, but were horrified by Biden’s admission that his presence here is illegal.

So, as recorded at the link above, Biden apologized on MSNBC for using the word “illegal.” (The correct legal term is “illegal alien.”):

President Biden apologized Saturday for using the word “illegal” during his State of the Union address to describe the Venezuelan migrant accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.

“An undocumented person. I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented,” Biden told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart in an excerpt from an interview airing Saturday….
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“So, you regret using that word?” Capehart asked.

“Yes,” Biden responded.

I, and everyone else, called that an apology. But the White House is now backtracking on its backtrack:

The White House on Monday pushed back against claims President Biden apologized for using the term “illegal” to describe the migrant accused of killing Laken Riley — just days after the president said he had “regret” for using the loaded term.
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White House deputy spokesperson Olivia Dalton attempted to clarify on Monday, telling a reporter that “the president absolutely did not apologize” despite his expression of regret.

“There was no apology anywhere in that conversation,” Dalton told reporters on Air Force One. “He did not apologize. He used a different word. I think what we should be really clear about is the facts.”

“He used a different word.” All right, then! Biden said that he “shouldn’t have used” the word illegal, and he “regrets” doing so. Talk about a fine distinction. So, why did the White House bother to walk back, at least partially, Biden’s MSNBC comments? I suppose because if you apologize, you have to apologize to someone. In this case, who is that someone? The (alleged) murderer, Jose Ibarra. Many have criticized Biden for apologizing to a murderer for calling him an illegal. Hence his handlers’ most recent spin: it wasn’t an apology, it was only an expression of regret for something he shouldn’t have done.

Got it, Joe.

And, finally, for a spokesman for the Biden White House to say that “what we should be really clear about is the facts” is, in its own way, a classic of dark comedy.