Key's apology

So John Key has apologized to Keisha Castle-Hughes. Good
on him. Apologizing doesn’t come easily to politicians—
Helen Clark, for instance, found it virtually impossible to do
so; she said sorry several times on behalf of the nation, in
regard to historical wrongs, but when it came to apologizing
for a personal slip or offensive remark, the Clark teeth
clenched all the tighter. Sure, Key only apologized after
several days of public criticism for his patronizing ‘Stick to
acting’ comment, so you could say that he was backed into
it, and that he only did it for reasons of political expediency
and damage control, but there are a thousand time-soiled
ways for politicians to weasel out of something, any one of
which he could have chosen, and in this case he spurned
them for a more honourable course.