Kanye West Taylor Swift incident: Enough apologies yet?

From West's stage-crashing MTV movie awards stunt to Joe Wilson's 'You lie!' to Serena Williams's foot fault tirade, America is clamoring for apologies.

By Tracey D. Samuelson | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 15, 2009 edition

Fans and critics from Twitter to YouTube were united in their demand for Kanye West to apologize to Taylor Swift for stomping on her moment of glory at MTV's Video Music Awards on Sunday.

And apologize he did – with an appearance on Jay Leno, two postings his blog, and a phone call to Ms. Swift directly.

While his apology seemed sincere enough, with a long and painful pause after Mr. Leno asked him what his recently deceased mother would say about his behavior, Mr. West is just the latest in a string of contrite public figures.

There was Serena Williams on Monday apologizing for threatening to shove a tennis ball down the throat of the line judge that called a foot fault against her in the semi-finals of the US Open.

Before Ms. Williams, there was Rep. Joe Wilson (R) of South Carolina who shouted "you lie!" at President Obama during his speech to Congress on healthcare.

And that's only in the last week.

In each case, the public was outraged, demanded contrition, and seemed satisfied enough with an apology.

But what does a simple mea culpa accomplish? Usually not that much.

Congressman Wilson, who immediately apologized to Mr. Obama after interrupting his speech, has subsequently backed off a larger apology. Perhaps realizing that he struck a chord with conservative Americans regarding healthcare for illegal immigrants, Wilson has refused to issue an apology on the House floor, prompting Democrats to formally censure him.

Meanwhile, this is hardly West's first offense. There have been previous outbursts. (Remember when he announced after Hurricane Katrina that "Bush doesn't care about black people"? )

After one such incident, the rapper reportedly said, "People were so surprised at what I did.... I'm more surprised people thought I had changed."

West claims that this time will be different. He seemed humbled by the volume of the response to his actions. He told Leno that he needs to take some time off, to figure out how he can be a better person going forward.

So far, West's misbehaviors haven't hurt him. With Jay-Z and Rihanna, he's sold over 70 million albums and they have a combined 20 Grammy Awards between them, according to Leno.