Saying "I'm sorry" fails to soothe US public anger

WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) Even saying he's sorry isn't working for US President George W Bush these days.

Bush has used the words ''mistakes,'' ''apologize'' and ''responsibility'' in trying to calm public anger over the Iraq war, substandard care of wounded veterans and the botched response to Hurricane Katrina.

Still his approval rating hovers around 35 per cent in opinion polls, just above the lows of his two-term presidency.

Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow on public opinion at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said people were fairly cynical due to the unpopular Iraq war and not paying much attention to Bush or his top officials.

''The judgment on his presidency is a negative one and explanations or apologies are unlikely to change that,'' Bowman said. ''It's one of the sourest moods I've seen in a long time and it washes over everything.'' High-profile apologies have worked in the past.

One of the most famous examples came from Bush's predecessor, President Bill Clinton, when he admitted to a relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

''I misled people, including even my wife. I deeply regret that,'' Clinton said in a televised address in 1998.

Sen John McCain in the late 1980s was one of five senators accused of intervening with federal savings and loan regulators on behalf of a big campaign donor.

McCain apologized, was reelected and made campaign finance reform a key issue. The Arizona Republican is now running for president in the 2008 election.

DEEDS, NOT WORDS These days, saying sorry isn't working in official Washington, where Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz are fighting to keep their jobs. Each has offered a public apology, with little reward.

Political analysts say the people want action.

''The public responds to events. Taking responsibility is very nice, but does it end the war or win the war faster because he says 'I take responsibility'?'' said Stephen Hess, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University in Washington.

For example, when Bush unveiled a new Iraq strategy in January to send 21,500 extra troops nearly four years after the invasion, he acknowledged a mistake in not deploying more forces sooner.

''The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me,'' Bush said in a televised White House address. ''Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.'' He sounded a similar note about six weeks after The Washington Post reported shabby treatment of wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Bush went to the hospital and said: ''I apologize for what they went through, and we're going to fix the problem.'' Bush was sharply criticized for first backing the head of the federal emergency response to Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster to hit the United States, before taking responsibility two weeks later to counter public outrage.

Katrina devastated the Gulf region in August 2005 and resulted in some 1,300 deaths.

Gonzales was criticized for mishandling the firing of eight US attorneys last year and came under harsh criticism from US lawmakers last month when he said nothing improper occurred but that ''my misstatements were my mistakes.'' Wolfowitz, embroiled in a scandal over a pay hike for his companion, had this to say: ''I made a mistake, for which I am sorry.'' His tenure at the World Bank remains tenuous.

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