As promised last time, we now take a closer look at GM's recent "apology" for making bad cars. I put apology in quotes because a careful reader will note that although headline writers call it an apology, nowhere in the text (pdf here for your collection) does GM actually say they're sorry. But they would like that $18 billion bailout please.
The always enterprising Michelle Malkin points out that GM has done this apology shtick before:

Like I said, I knew this apology strategy sounded familiar.

That’s because GM ran a “We’re sorry we suck so much” ad campaign five years ago in that sounded the same themes.

So this isn't the first time GM has come crawling back with a mealy-mouthed apology for its corporate suckitude ... that only confirms my loser boyfriend interpretation of this sorry spectacle!

Autoblog throws open the discussion. Commenters there are divided. Some blame GM for building big, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. Others blame American consumers for buying big, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. Still others blame GM for making Americans want to buy big, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs — further reinforcing the codependency theme.

Kendra Marr of the Washington Post, interviews Gene Grabowski, chair of the crisis and litigation practice at Levick Strategic Communications, and others, about GM's approach. (We've heard from the Levick crowd before, commenting on corporate apologies.) He says apologizing isn't easy for corporate America.

But GM does seem to have the non-apology apology down.

Patricia Sellers at Fortune, rolls the GM letter into a roundup of what she calls a positive recent trend of "leaders fessing up." All of her examples—GM letter, Vikrim Pandit and Robert Rubin at Citigroup,  President Bush are of leaders admitting to making mistakes—or at least admitting that mistakes were made—but none seem to involve actual apologies. Ms. Sellers notes that admitting mistakes is not enough.

I think that is why the GM pseudo-apology falls flat. It coincides with begging for $18 billion or more from the taxpayers, it isn't the first time the company has used this ploy, and their statement contains no real expression of remorse or clear and specific commitment to improve their ways. I mean "produce automobiles you want to buy and are excited to own"  is a bit vague. GM basically comes across as one of those pushy panhandlers you encounter in some cities ... the ones who follow you down the block spinning their yarn about how they need a dollar for bus fare to the train station because their — apparently invisible — car broke down. Exact same thing, except GM wants to shake you down for $18 billion instead of the loose change in your pocket.

If they were really, truly sorry about the sorry way they've run their business, might General Motors have found it in themselves to come clean and really apologize and have a real plan to once again be the innovative global leaders American car companies used to be (and I think we all wish still were) before things got this bad?

In the end, I agree with Ms. Malkin and many others:

GM’s “road to redemption” five years ago turned out to be another dead end.

If you subsidize it, you’ll get more of it.

The “$15 billion” auto bailout installment is essentially a blank check for a carmaker that admits it has run a failing business for the last 25 years.

Let them fail. Let them go bankrupt. Let some with more enterprise, more foresight, more brains, and more guts acquire GM's assets, pick up the pieces and rebuild the American auto industry. Sorry GM. It's just not working out.

It is time to dump this chump!