As reported in the Washington Post from the AP — and this account is being parroted universally in the left-lackey media — George Zimmerman apologized to the family of Trayvon Martin:

In an unusual move, George Zimmerman took the witness stand Friday to apologize to the parents of Trayvon Martin for fatally shooting their 17-year-old son. Assistant prosecutor Bernardo de la Rionda took the opportunity to grill the neighborhood watch volunteer about some of the statements he made to police.  (Emphasis added.)

Eager to pounce on Zimmerman’s surprise statement, prosecutor De la Rionda attempted to twist Zimmerman’s words into an admission of criminal guilt and/or an offense of perjury, or at least a cynical ploy to scrounge for some media sympathy:  

De la Rionda: … I thought you were going to address your honor, Judge (Kenneth) Lester, not — that’s really addressed to where the family and where the media happens to be, is that correct Mr. Zimmerman?
Zimmerman: No, to the mother and father.
De la Rionda: And tell me, after you committed this crime and you spoke to the police, did you ever make that statement to the police sir, that you were sorry for what you’d done or their loss?  (Emphasis added.)
Zimmerman: No sir.
De la Rionda: You never stated that did you?
Zimmerman: I don’t remember what I said. I believe I did state that…In one of the statements, I said I felt sorry for the family.

One dictionary defines apologize thus: “To make excuse for or regretful acknowledgment of a fault or offense.”  (Emphasis added.)  To find out if Zimmerman actually apologized, by that definition, we need to do a rewind and aggregation of what Zimmerman actually said:

Zimmerman: I wanted to say I am very sorry for the loss of your son. I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am, and I did not know if he was armed or not… In one of the statements [to the police], I said I felt sorry for the family… I felt sorry that they lost their child, yes… I did ask [my attorneys] to express [my sorrow] to them. And they said that they were going to. (Emphases added.)

In my internet search for this post, using several searchword combinations, I went through a multitude of results pages in succession until the results started veering far off topic…the results list appeared to be the closest thing to infinite.  In not one single instance did I find a descriptive word for Zimmerman’s statement other than apology or one of its cognates.  (Nor, interestingly, did I find a pertinent result for any media entity that isn’t manifestly left-lackey except Fox News, but even Fox used apology, albeit via the AP story.)

But the transcript alone shows clearly, to any rational, unbiased reader, that Zimmerman did not apologize: he offered Trayvon Martin’s family his regret and sorrow at the loss of their son; what he said was no apology by any stretch of definitional integrity.  And if you doubt Zimmerman’s sincerity, please take the trouble watch the video.  (BTW I had to include apology in my search text to find any result that pointed to that video.)

You, media: shame! shame!

(This post first appeared as a blog post on American Thinker April 21, 2012)