I feel that I owe an apology or explanation to the people who are to listen for the fact that I must read what I am going to say. It would be more pleasant to me and more agreeable to you to speak without notes, but I want to address that larger constituency which we reach through the newspapers, for it is a thousand times as numerous as any crowd that could assemble here, and therefore, in order that I may speak to all throughout the land. I have committed to writing what I desire to say, and will ask for your indulgence while I read my speech. (1)

You know how when you were a kid and you teased your sibling(s) with the resolve of someone who is on a mission? And you know how your parents probably forced you to apologize for acting like the spawn of a demon?

If you were anything like us when we were kids, you probably faked your apology with the masterful precision of a Shakespearean actor.

Bryan's opening lines are right up there with those moments of childhood deceit. This might be one of the most insincere apologies in all of U.S. history. He wasn't sorry. He knew that he was hijacking the Democratic Convention speech.

He knew this because he hijacked it last time when he was nominated in 1896. Except that time he gave a speech on the Free Silver debate. So, in other words, he knew what he was doing and totally faked an apology.

But hey, he was a politician. That couldn't have been the first or last time he did something like that, right?