This is interesting to me for one reason: the need to apologize. My, perhaps heavily biased, impression is that this is a typical American thing. I mean, what

This is interesting to me for one reason: the need to apologize. My, perhaps heavily biased, impression is that this is a typical American thing. I mean, what are the odds that all those people who did bad things (or things considered as bad) feel truly sorry? E.g. Lance Armstrong. Why not be honest and say "I lied"/"I cheated", "deal with it"? That would garner more respect from me than an apology that is going to sound false.