Daniel Larison writes the same article that a lot of folks are writing about Mitt Romney's unclassy (and unpresidential) statement about the Libyan rioting.
I get the feeling that many years ago, some focus group study told Romney that one thing voters like — and this may just have been the kind of voters he thought he could harvest — is a candidate who refuses to apologize for anything. There are a lot of people in this world who confuse never admitting you're wrong with always being right and some see it as indicative of strength of character. You and I both know that it shows the opposite but we're smarter than a lot of people.
So Romney titled his book No Apology and he's gone around accusing his opponents of apologizing as if that alone is wrong, regardless of what you're apologizing for. And this time, he got it so wrong that he should, of course, apologize…but can't. George W. Bush, the man who couldn't name a single mistake in eight years of a presidency where a lot of things didn't happen the way he wanted, had much the same shortcoming.
By the way: I apologize for saying I'm smarter than a lot of people.