Make no mistake, the acting commissioner of the IRS put himself in historic company Tuesday that "mistakes were made" when his agency some conservative groups.
No less an authority on language than the late William Safire, in his Safire's Political Dictionary, 鈥� describing it as "a passive-evasive way of acknowledging error while distancing the speaker from responsibility for it."
Political analyst Bill Schneider declared it to be the "past exonerative" of choice for the political class.
Seeing it used again set us off on a search of the phrase's origin and history.
As , "the magical construction was popularized during Watergate by Nixon spokesman Ron Ziegler." In 1973, he , for example, saying that "mistakes were made in terms of comments" that the White House had made about the Post and the reporters.
It famously came up again in December 1986. President Reagan conceded that "mistakes were made" by his administration when it sold arms to Iran and . Reagan used the phrase again a month later, in his .
President Clinton, a Democrat, proved in 1998 that Republicans aren't the only ones who know a good non-apology apology when they hear one. Asked about a fundraising scandal, "mistakes were made here by people who did it either deliberately or inadvertently."
Republicans picked the ball up again during George W. Bush's administration. As , Bush added a "skillful refinement ... the subordinate-clause admission or error, compounding passivity and present-perfection with a conditional 'whatever.' " Speaking of the Iraq war, Bush said in 2006 that "whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone."
A year later, Bush's attorney general grabbed for the verbal life ring. " , Alberto Gonzales said.
But where did all this begin?
We turn again to Safire:
"The artful dodge of the impersonal apology has roots. President Ulysses S. Grant, fondly remembered by grammarians for his activist self-description, 'I am a verb,' appended a note to his final annual report to Congress on December 5, 1876, acknowledging the scandals that had plagued his two terms in office with the words, 'Mistakes have been made, as all can see and I admit.' "
If you know of earlier references, please tell us. And if there are any errors in this post ... well, you know what we'll say.
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