heric, I too saw Richards' apology. I, for one, empathised with him. As rationally as we know that we are not racist, there is still that ugly bit in most of us that tells us we are not as pure as we'd thought- and hoped. Some of us may never run into that ugly bit but it probably is there.

Seinfeld used a telling word, I thought- he said that Michael R. is 'shattered'. His apology came across as sincere as I have ever seen.

Another time, early on, when the Letterman crowd was still not sure what was going on, there were some titters and Seinfeld said directly to them: Don't laugh. It isn't funny.