Some of my favorite commercials are the ones that show the kid horsing around the living room with a plate of spaghetti and then drops it. He looks pathetic and sad as his mother comes in, sees the mess then his puppy dog face and just smiles as she grabs the cleaning products.

Now we all know what a real world event would occur here. It would involve the police and a coroner.

The commercial is of course trying to convey that no mess is hard to clean up with their product. They also say that all you have to do is say, "sorry" and everything will be okay.

Well, that's bull$h!t. You get to say sorry only a few times and then, when it becomes habit, you become a legal target for criticism and scrutiny.

There is one man that has reached that level and indeed given the bar a little push:

President William Jefferson Clinton.

This man has changed his position so many times and then apologized for it later that he should be working at the International House of Pancakes.

Well, this week even he has outdone himself.

Clinton, amid controversy with his darling wife, announced clemency to several Puerto Rican's supposedly involved in illegal activities and apologized for the inconvenience.

AND Clinton is addressing the royal family of Hawaii about what he can do to give attrition for the United States taking over their little island about seven million years ago.

What the hell is he doing?

I've been trying to recall another presidency that spent four years apologizing for everything it has done.

There isn't one. Except maybe the Ford administration.

This is like a bad Monty Python sketch.

I mean, the whole Lewinsky thing is one that certainly needed an apology for and I accept that. Clinton gave the country a much needed boost on the realism of the highest office in the country. We learned there is actually a human walking around in there, making decisions.

But now.

How can someone respect a person who apologizes all the time?

The Presidency is supposed to be a benchmark of strong decisions for which he simply will not apologize. Ronald Reagan never apologized and people consider him one of the strongest presidents in history. Yes, his administration was littered with controversy and bad decisions also but no wimpy apologetic whelping.

I wrote long ago, concerning the Lewinsky affair that Clinton needed to just apologize, hunker down and get his job done. Had I realized that his job was hunkering down over a confessions bench then I would have reconsidered my thoughts and voted for removal from office.

The moral is simple, "make a decision and stand by it, dammit."

The Puerto Rican and Hawaiian apologies are things he didn't even do in the first place. Clinton is apologizing for other people, some of whom aren't even alive anymore.

Geez.

It's enough to make the voters say, "I'm sorry."