You probably have an idea what’s coming. To start with, it’s those notices you find on places such as the door to the liquor store when you really, really need some help to get through the presidential debate that starts in an hour, or the public restroom you’ve only barely made it to before soiling your britches.

“Sorry for any inconvenience that may have been caused.”

That isn’t much of an apology. A real apology would not use “may.” Such a notice never appears if there is even the slightest doubt that inconvenience has been caused. Consider the two examples above. Major inconvenience resulted, and there was no doubt about it. Then there is use of the passive voice, about which more follows.

Akin to this pretend apology is one favored by politicians who have been recorded saying something they felt deeply but had meant to keep to themselves, something such as, “Christian belief is really a sucker’s game. Smart people don’t need it.” No matter how secular the country is becoming, there is considerable political risk in that. So a day or two after the recording comes to the attention of voters, Senator Runagate stands before a bank of microphones and cameras trying, but failing, to look ashamed and says something to the effect that the tape is a fake, but in case it’s not, “I’m sorry if I offended anyone.”

If?

Back to the passive voice. After Ronald Reagan was caught violating several laws by selling missiles to Iran and using the proceeds to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, his quasi-apology was, “Mistakes were made.” A substantial part of the world’s population erupted in guffaws that he thought that cleared him. His statement accomplished little other than showing that English teachers are wrong in their blanket indictment of the passive voice. And another thing, a mistake is an unintended act. Not at all the case with Reagan’s Iran-Contra actions.

When Todd Akin was running for the Senate in Missouri in 2012, he gave a doozy of an apology for saying women don’t get pregnant if they are victims of “legitimate rape,” because “the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” His apology: “I used the wrong words in the wrong way, and for that I apologize.” How about apologizing for being monumentally ignorant and sexist?

And this brings me to Donald Trump’s 90-second non-apology about that stuff he said on the “Access Hollywood” tape. Give him credit, though. Even though he’s as challenged as George W. Bush in the use of English, he attempted a creative version of this exercise rather than going with the tried and true.

He started with a lie – “I’ve never said I’m a perfect person.”

He did say to Anderson Cooper, “Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness, if I am not making mistakes?” In the next paragraph he said, “I apologize,” but only for the words he’d used not for the battery and sexual assault he admitted committing. Then it was on to what he’d learned campaigning and what scumbags Bill and Hill are. Like I said, give him credit for creativity.

Regarding her use of a private email server, Hillary Clinton said for months that “it was not the best choice.” That’s putting it in the best light possible, isn’t it? But in the second debate she finally stopped giving such a lawyerly defense: “I’m not making any excuses. It was a mistake. And I am very sorry about that.”

Wow. The real thing.