has defined the phrase as "[a] passive-evasive way of acknowledging error while distancing the speaker from responsibility for it". A commentator at NPR declared this expression to be "the king of non-apologies". While perhaps most famous in politics, the phrase has also been used in business, sports, and entertainment. Ifpology Attorney and business ethics expert Lauren Bloom, author of The Art of the Apology, mentions the "if apology" as a favorite of politicians, with lines such as "I apologize if I offended anyone". Comedian Harry Shearer has coined the term Ifpology for its frequent appearances on "The Apologies of the Week" segment of Le Show. One of the first references was in The New York Times by Richard Mooney in his 1992 editorial notebook "If This Sounds Slippery ... How to Apologize and Admit Nothing". This was mainly in regard to Senator Bob Packwood: "Only in the event that someone should choose to take offense, why then he's sorry". Mooney goes on to cite Bill Clinton, who said of Mario Cuomo: "If the remarks on the tape left anyone with the impression that I was disrespectful to either Governor Cuomo or Italian-Americans, then I deeply regret it." A famous example involved racially insensitive remarks made by golfer Fuzzy Zoeller about Tiger Woods; Zoeller's comments and his half-hearted ifpology were news for days and resulted in his being dropped from a commercial tie-in with K-Mart. According to John Kador in Effective Apology, "Adding the word if or any other conditional modifier to an apology makes it a non-apology." A 2014 ifpology was made by CNNs Don Lemon, who said, "If my question to [Joan Tarshis] struck anyone as offensive, I am sorry, as that certainly was not my intention." This was about a question during his interview with Joan Tarshis where he suggested biting a penis as a way to avoid being orally sexually assaulted. On September 16, 2015, Matt Damon made what Salon termed a "non-apology" apology when he said, "I am sorry that [my comments] offended some people, but, at the very least, I am happy that they started a conversation about diversity in Hollywood." This was in reference to the backlash against Damon after he made comments about diversity to African American film producer Effie Brown on the September 13, 2015 debut of the HBO show Project Greenlight that were criticized as condescending. Other versions On July 24,