inexplicable

(edited for clarity)

What can you say about John Kerry?

Former President of Iran Mohammad Khatami, right, shares a word with Senator from Massachusetts, USA, John Kerry after participating in a session ‘The Future of the Middle East’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday Jan. 27, 2007. Kerry criticized the Bush administration’s foreign policy during the session, saying it has caused the United States to become “a sort of international pariah.” (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Will Kerry be granted a Hugh Grant moment? I have no idea whether Kerry has totally stepped over the line this time. One of the things that concerns me is that even though I’ve got pretty good antennae, I don’t know where the line is these days—it keeps moving.

By which I mean that what is “acceptable” in political discourse changes faster than you can say “homophobe” (or “Islamophobe” or “anti-Semite“). And that what is “acceptable” behavior from the domestic political opposition changes faster than you can say “visiting Assad in Syria” or “paying respect to Iran’s Supreme Shithead [see above].”

There are arguments to be made that Kerry’s bizarre behavior could in fact help us—that in the Age of Global Political Correctness (TM), this sort of faux “public diplomacy” is appreciated by the global audience and that it makes us look good, in a good cop-bad cop kind of way. But only as long as there actually is a bad cop. Who knows? But we shouldn’t ignore the notion. It actually reminds me of Yitzhak Rabin’s determination “to fight terror as if there were not a peace process and to pursue peace as if there were no terror.” Which only sounds contradictory; I think it’s it may be the only way forward.

But back to the stuff that doesn’t make my head hurt—as in: will we forgive Kerry?

Because that’s what we do with our beloved and/or loathed celebrities: we try them in the court of public opinion, sometimes with great fanfare and sometimes almost under the radar. I also agree with author Paul Slansky, who says that we Americans are obsessed with redemption:

For [Michael] Richards, going on Letterman was a shrewd choice, says Paul Slansky, author (with Arleen Sorkin) of a wonderfully witty compendium of apologies called “My Bad: 25 Years of Public Apologies and the Appalling Behavior That Inspired Them.”

“Going on the late-night talk show, as Hugh Grant proved with Jay Leno years ago, is a fantastic stage for making an apology,” Slansky says. “The late-night talk show is almost by definition a safe, friendly environment. They’re thrilled to have you, and they’re not going to ask you any hard questions, then everybody talks about it the next day and it’s all over.”

Unless you’re Dick Cheney, it’s almost impossible to escape an incident unscathed without feeding the apology machine. Just ask Judith Regan, who ended up in even more hot water by responding to the outcry over her O.J. Simpson “If I Did It” book and TV special with an outlandish justification, casting herself as a victim, not a perpetrator - and apparently blaming her subsequent firing on a “cabal” of some sort.

So why has the apology become such an integral part of the often dicey relationship between media and celebrity?

“It probably has a lot to do with America’s obsession with redemption,” says Slansky. “People today have a major love-hate relationship with celebrities. The relationship is so fraught with Schadenfreude that people are thrilled when celebrities (mess) up, and yet they’re happy to see them back again. After all, most people aren’t genuinely sorry. Most apologies are a way of saying, ‘I’m sorry I let down my guard and let you see my inner ugliness.’”

That’s right, too, I think. We don’t necessarily need to believe that these “sinners” are reformed, but we are still addicted to the Redemption Narrative and we want to see it played out.

We like to watch.

Peter Sellers in Being There (directed by Hal Ashby and co-starring the divine Shirley Maclaine); based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinski