"Mistakes were made" is an expression that is commonly used as a rhetorical device, whereby a speaker acknowledges that a situation was handled poorly or inappropriately but seeks to evade any direct admission or accusation of responsibility by not specifying the person who made the mistakes, nor any specific act that was a mistake. The acknowledgement of "mistakes" is framed in an abstract sense, with no direct reference to who made the mistakes, or the nature and extent of the mistakes. A less evasive construction might be along the lines of "I made mistakes" or "John Doe made mistakes"; a similar active existential construction might be "mistakes happened". [1] The speaker neither accepts personal responsibility nor accuses anyone else. The word "mistakes" also does not imply intent.
The New York Times has called the phrase a "classic Washington linguistic construct". Political scientist William Schneider suggested that this usage be referred to as the "past exonerative" tense, [2] and commentator William Safire has defined the phrase as "[a] passive-evasive way of acknowledging error while distancing the speaker from responsibility for it". [3] A commentator at NPR declared this expression to be "the king of non-apologies". [4] While perhaps most famous in politics, the phrase has also been used in business, sports, and entertainment.
Despite some mockery of the phrase, its use is still widespread, and in the opinion of one commentator, "the type of evasive and corrupted language for which Ron Ziegler was repeatedly pilloried for using as Nixon's press secretary is not only accepted, but heartily and shamelessly embraced as a norm of political and social conduct". [5]
![]() | The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(January 2023) |
An early parody of the phrase appears in Matt Groening's Life in Hell cartoon strip. Groening draws a looming shadow of the rabbit named Binky, towering over his one-eared son, Bongo, who has clearly made a total mess of the house. Bongo uselessly says: "Mistakes were made." This cartoon coincided with Reagan's use of the excuse in 1987, regarding the Iran-Contra Affair. [28]
In the TV mini-series Son of the Morning Star, Captain Frederick Benteen uses this line to explain Custer's defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Playwright Craig Wright wrote a 2006 episode for ABC's drama series Brothers & Sisters , called "Mistakes Were Made, Part One" (with Jon Robin Baitz). He expanded the gag into a one-man play starring Michael Shannon, Mistakes Were Made, performed off-Broadway in 2009, to mixed reviews. [29]
The phrase was also used in the multiplayer portion of Call of Duty: Black Ops referring to a player dying in a variety of ways not caused by an enemy player, such as falling from a great height, being crushed or the negligent use of grenades.
Henry Alfred Kissinger was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and national security advisor from 1969 to 1975, in the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
Melvin Robert Laird Jr. was an American politician, writer and statesman. He was a U.S. congressman from Wisconsin from 1953 to 1969 before serving as Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973 under President Richard Nixon. Laird was instrumental in forming the administration's policy of withdrawing U.S. soldiers from the Vietnam War; he coined the expression "Vietnamization," referring to the process of transferring more responsibility for combat to the South Vietnamese forces. First elected in 1952, Laird was the last living Representative elected to the 83rd Congress at the time of his death.
A non-denial denial is a statement that, at first hearing, seems to be a direct, clearcut and unambiguous denial of some allegation or accusation, but after being parsed carefully turns out not to be a denial at all, and is thus not explicitly untruthful if the allegation is in fact correct. It is a case in which words that are literally true are used to convey a false impression; analysis of whether or when such behavior constitutes lying is a long-standing issue in ethics. British newspaper The Sunday Times has defined it as "an on-the-record statement, usually made by a politician, repudiating a journalist's story, but in such a way as to leave open the possibility that it is actually true".
William Lewis Safire was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He was a long-time syndicated political columnist for The New York Times and wrote the "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine about popular etymology, new or unusual usages, and other language-related topics.
"Vast right-wing conspiracy" is a phrase popularized by a 1995 memo by political opposition researcher Chris Lehane and then referenced in 1998 by the then First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton, in defense of her husband, President Bill Clinton, characterizing the continued allegations of scandal against her and her husband, including the Lewinsky scandal, as part of a conspiracy by Clinton's political enemies. The term has been used since, including in a question posed to Bill Clinton in 2009 to describe verbal attacks on Barack Obama during his early presidency. Hillary Clinton mentioned it again during her 2016 presidential campaign.
An election promise or campaign promise is a promise or guarantee made to the public by a candidate or political party that is trying to win an election.
A "flip-flop", U-turn, or backflip is a derogatory term for a sudden real or apparent change of policy or opinion by a public official, sometimes while trying to claim that the two positions are consistent with each other. It carries connotations of pandering and hypocrisy. Often, flip-flops occur during the period prior to or following an election in order to maximize the candidate's popularity.
In politics, a dog whistle is the use of coded or suggestive language in political messaging to garner support from a particular group without provoking opposition. The concept is named after ultrasonic dog whistles, which are audible to dogs but not humans. Dog whistles use language that appears normal to the majority but communicates specific things to intended audiences. They are generally used to convey messages on issues likely to provoke controversy without attracting negative attention.
Fall guy is a colloquial phrase that refers to a person to whom blame is deliberately and falsely attributed in order to deflect blame from another party.
A non-apology apology, sometimes called a backhanded apology, empty apology, nonpology, or fauxpology, is a statement in the form of an apology that does not express remorse for what was done or said, or assigns fault to those ostensibly receiving the apology. It is common in politics and public relations.
In the politics of the United States, an October surprise is a news event that may influence the outcome of an upcoming November election, whether deliberately planned or spontaneously occurring. Because the date for national elections is in early November, events that take place in October have greater potential to influence the decisions of prospective voters and allow less time to take remedial action; thus, relatively last-minute news stories could either change the course of an election or reinforce the inevitable. The term "October surprise" was coined by William Casey when he served as campaign manager of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. However, there were October election-upending events that predated the coining of the term.
CNN, an American basic cable and satellite television channel, has been the subject of multiple controversies. This article recounts controversies and allegations relating to both the domestic version of CNN, and its sister channels CNN International and CNN-News18.
A hot mic, sometimes referred to as an open microphone or a stuck mic, is in general an apparent error in which a microphone is switched on or remains on, especially without the speaker realizing.
"Stay the course" is a phrase used in the context of a war or battle meaning to pursue a goal regardless of any obstacles or criticism. The modern usage of this term was popularized by United States presidents George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan.
"Peace with Honor" was a phrase U.S. President Richard Nixon used in a speech on January 23, 1973 to describe the Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam War. The phrase is a variation on a campaign promise Nixon made in 1968: "I pledge to you that we shall have an honorable end to the war in Vietnam." The Accords specified that a ceasefire would take place four days later. According to the plan, within sixty days of the ceasefire, the North Vietnamese would release all U.S. prisoners, and all U.S. troops would withdraw from South Vietnam. On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. soldier left Vietnam. On 30 April 1975, Saigon was taken by North Vietnamese troops.
This bibliography of Richard Nixon includes publications by Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, and books and scholarly articles about him and his policies.
"Bring Us Together" was a political slogan popularized after the election of Republican candidate Richard Nixon as President of the United States in the 1968 election. The text was derived from a sign which 13-year-old Vicki Lynne Cole stated that she had carried at Nixon's rally in her hometown of Deshler, Ohio, during the campaign.
The Bowling Green massacre is a fictitious incident of Islamic terrorism mentioned by Kellyanne Conway, then–counselor to President Donald Trump, in interviews with Cosmopolitan and TMZ on January 29, 2017, and in an interview on the MSNBC news program Hardball with Chris Matthews on February 2, 2017. Conway cited it as justification for a travel and immigration ban from seven Muslim-majority countries enacted by United States president Donald Trump. However, no such massacre occurred. The day after the interview, Conway said she misspoke and had been referring to the 2011 arrest of two Iraqi refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on charges including "attempting to provide material support to terrorists and to al-Qaeda in Iraq." She stated that she had mentioned the incident because it led previous President Barack Obama to tighten immigration procedures for Iraqi citizens.
The impeachment inquiry against Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, was initiated by a vote of the United States House of Representatives on October 8, 1998, roughly a month after the release of the Starr Report. The United States House of Representatives, led by Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, voted to authorize a broad impeachment inquiry against President Clinton. The inquiry was conducted by the House Committee on the Judiciary.