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Conrad Black learns new word: Sorry

Of all the things Conrad Black is known for, being apologetic isn’t one of them. Nor is he known for being attritional, compunctious, conscience-stricken, contrite, penitential, regretful, repentant, self-accusing, self-condemnatory, or even self-reproachful. However, as Martin Knelman reports in the Toronto Star, the disgraced former media baron has publicly apologized for committing an act so heinous, so gruesome, even he knew he was over the line.

That’s right: he wrote a snarky book review.

The offending review was of Margaret MacMillan’s latest book, Nixon in China, and appeared in the Literary Review of Canada. Though Black and Macmillan are friends (or “frenemies”?), LRC editor Bronwyn Drainie (who is also one of Q&Q’s contributing editors) chose him to review the book because he is at work on his own biography of the former president.

In a letter to the editor of the respected literary publication, Black confesses: “On re-reading my review … I find that although I expressed my liking and admiration for the author and for this book, the tenor of part of my review was one of inadvertent condescension. That is entirely inappropriate and was unintentional, but I apologize for the slightly patronizing tone of several sentences.”

If he had re-read carefully what he had written, he adds, “I would have altered the tone to indicate more clearly the high opinion I had of the book, despite minor concerns.”

Knelman gets in the best line of the whole thing early on: “Condescension, of course, has long been a key weapon in Black’s rhetoric, but no one ever called it inadvertent.”

Related links:
Read about Conrad Black’s apology to Margaret MacMillan
Read Q&Q‘s own unapologetically positive review of Nixon in China

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