They never offer a real apology. It’s always some well-scripted line about how they didn’t mean to offend you, or they’re sorry if you were offended. They’re not sorry for what they said. They’re sorry if you misunderstood it. To wit: This idiot Republican Congressman, Rep. Bill Sali of Idaho, who said that the Founding Fathers never intended Muslims to be elected to Congress.

“We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes — and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers,” Sali said, according to an article on the network’s Web site.

Now he’s offered an “apology.”

Sali responded days later, sending Ellison an e-mail explaining he meant no offense. “He said that he wanted to make sure that Congressman Ellison understood that he meant no harm or disrespect,” Sali spokesman Wayne Hoffman said.

Did you get that? He meant no offense, harm, or disrespect when he said that the Founding Fathers would have never wanted a Muslim-American elected to high office in America. Then what exactly did he mean? What does he think of the substance of what he said?

Why does the media accept these non-apologies as true apologies. A real apology would be: I was wrong, I was rude, I was offensive, and I’m sorry. In this case, the congressman actually pretty much stood behind what he said, all he’s talking about what his “motivation” in saying it. Well that’s nice. But lots of bigotry in America isn’t motivated by a desire to be a bigot. It’s usually motivated by your sense that you’re correct, that you have morality and God and history on your side. Very few people with bigoted views actually intend to be bigots. Usually, they intend to be Godly. But they’re still bigots.