In sentences like that, I tend to ignore everything before the 'but'. To my admittedly uneducated eye, nothing in the rest of that article indicates any kind o

In sentences like that, I tend to ignore everything before the 'but'. To my admittedly uneducated eye, nothing in the rest of that article indicates any kind of remorse or regret over the author's actions. The clause before the 'but' is how the author gives themselves permission to say what's after the 'but'. This does not necessarily impart any emotional (or even semantic) meaning onto the first clause.