Michigan Senate hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed formally apologized to Jewish Democrats for weaving a jab at Israel in his response to an attack on a Michigan synagogue in March.
Page A5From§Eachthe early evening edition — 30 August 2026
El-Sayed apologizes for lamenting terrorist's family death, wins Clyburn's 'second chances' endorsement immediately.
As it ran on the front
Word gets used a lot around election season: 'second chances.' It's a nice phrase. It sounds like church. It is not church. It is a machine deciding which apology gets a press release and which apology gets a primary opponent.
Here is what happened, in order, because order is the whole story. Abdul El-Sayed said something in the days after the Michigan synagogue attack that he later called wrong — the New York Post has the quote, we don't need to improve on it — and this week he apologized. Same week, Representative Jim Clyburn, third-ranking Democrat in the House, told The Hill he backs him. 'All of us deserve second chances,' Clyburn said. Not 'he deserves a second chance.' All of us. That's the tell. That's not a comment about one man's remarks. That's a policy.…
…(cont) Ask yourself who else in your life got that sentence said about them this month. Your landlord didn't say it about your rent. Your insurance company didn't say it about your claim getting denied. 'All of us deserve second chances' is a phrase reserved for people the party already decided it needs, said by a man who has spent decades deciding who the party needs.
None of this means the apology was insincere. That's not the point and it's not this paper's business to grade it. The point is the speed. A man says something in public that requires an apology, and inside what looks like one news cycle, the third-ranking House Democrat is on record with absolution before most voters even finished reading the first story. That's not how it works for the rest of us. When you're late on the electric bill, nobody from leadership calls the utility company to say all of us deserve second chances.
The synagogue attack that started this is the real thing here, the actual injury, and it does not get a second chance, second bill, second anything — it happened and it stays happened. Everything else — the comment, the apology, the endorsement — is politics moving fast to make sure a seat stays safe. Watch how fast forgiveness travels when the person forgiven still has use to somebody. Watch how slow it travels everywhere else.
“Say the quiet part, apologize for it a while later, get walked back onto the ticket by a guy from South Carolina talking about second chances — that's not forgiveness, that's the machine protecting its own investment. The rest of us don't get a press cycle before the landlord decides whether we deserve one.”
“Look, Dr. El-Sayed apologized, that's accountability, that's the system working — and Congressman Clyburn backing him up is just Democrats being a big tent, which is different from closing ranks, which, okay, it's closing ranks, but the generous kind.”
The receipts
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Sunday said he supports Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) after he apologized for comments he made following an attack on a Detroit-area synagogue earlier this year, with the South Carolina House…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.